Appeal 2007-1838
Application 10/118,523
on the claimed limitation related to the applying “pulse modulation
information” to a motor to control the speed of movement of the barrier, and
then “using the [same] pulse modulation information” to determine the
presence of a barrier (Br. 7). Specifically, the issue is:
whether using a combination of pulsed input signal and the
PWM signal for controlling the speed and obstacle detection in
Cook is the same as the claimed subject matter that requires
using the pulse modulation information for both controlling the
speed and detecting an obstacle.
FINDINGS OF FACT
The following findings of fact (FF) are relevant to the issue at hand.
1. Appellant’s claim 12 requires pulse modulation information to be
applied to a motor for controlling the speed of movement of the barrier as
well as used to determine when the barrier has encountered an obstacle.
2. Cook discloses a method and a system for controlling a vehicle
sliding door driven by an electric motor (col. 1, ll. 6-8).
3. The sliding door system includes a control module 28 (Figure 1)
which generates output signal for controlling electric motors 30, 32, and 34
to open and close the door in response to the signal from the control module
(col. 2, ll. 42-50).
4. To move the door, the control module uses the pulsed input signals
from the position encoder to characterize a number of door operating
parameters (col. 3, ll. 13-17) as the input signals have a known relationship
to the rotation of the drive motor (col. 3, ll. 17-19).
5. Based on the duty cycle of the motor, Cook discloses that the
timing between input signals and the order in which they are received are
indicative of door position, direction of travel, speed and force as well as
3
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