Appeal 2007-2374
Application 10/038,545
station equipment by comparing a distance measuring control signal returned
from each of the subscriber units with a reference value (Figures 1 and 2;
Specification 4, 11 and 21).
Claim 1 is representative of the claims on appeal, and it reads as
follows:
1. An optical subscriber system comprising: station equipment; a
plurality of subscriber units; a transmission line for transmitting trailing
signals from the station equipment to the plurality of subscriber units and
transmitting leading signals from the plurality of subscriber units to the
station equipment; and a star coupler for branching trailing signals and
combining the leading signals,
the station equipment comprising a transmission line distance
monitor/processor unit which sends a distance measuring control signal to
each of the subscriber units, measures, based on a distance measuring signal
returned from each of the subscriber units, the transmission line distance
between the station equipment and each of the subscriber units, and judges
whether the transmission line distance is larger or smaller than a
predetermined reference value.
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Effenberger US 5,930,018 Jul. 27, 1999
Tochio US 6,563,613 B1 May 13, 2003
(filed Dec. 2, 1998)
The Examiner rejected claims 1 to 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based
upon the teachings of Tochio and Effenberger.
Appellant contends that the claims on appeal explicitly require that the
measured values are compared to a predetermined1 reference value, whereas
1 A “reference value” is described throughout the disclosure, but a
“predetermined reference value” is not mentioned in the disclosure.
2
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