Appeal 2007-1200
Application 09/900,251
USPQ2d 1152, 1156 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (explaining the general evidentiary standard
for proceedings before the Office).
1. The Specification teaches that “In the preferred embodiment, a
‘pheromone’ is a packet of digital information that includes at a
minimum two pieces of information: a type identifier enabling different
packets of the same type to be associated with one another, and a
strength.” (Specification 2:14-17).
2. The Specification also teaches the factors which drive the pheromone
infrastructure:
The internal operation of the pheromone infrastructure
aggregates and propagates pheromone deposits by the
agents. At the same time, local pheromone concentrations
are reduced in strength automatically by the pheromone
infrastructure's evaporation mechanism. There are three
general parameters specifying a pheromone in the
infrastructure: the pheromone's evaporation factor,
propagation factor, and threshold. The evaporation factor
determines the rate of the decay of the local strength of a
pheromone over time. The propagation factor influences
the strength with which a pheromone deposit event to a
place is propagated to the neighboring places. The
threshold is the strength below which the pheromone is
ignored by the pheromone infrastructure. The
performance of a pheromone-based coordination
mechanism in a specific application depends on these
three parameters.
(Specification 7:1-11).
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