Ex parte Przybyla et al.

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

May 6, 1999

08157198 (B.P.A.I. May. 6, 1999)

Application for patent filed December 9, 1993. 1
According to appellants, this application is the national
stage application of PCT/DE92/00456 filed April 6, 1992.
THIS OPINION WAS NOT WRITTEN FOR PUBLICATION
The opinion in support of the decision being entered today (1) was
not written for publication in a law journal and (2) is not
binding precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 22
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte BERND PRZYBYLA, JUERGEN PISCHKE
and JANINA-URSULA LANGER
____________
Appeal No. 96-3205
Application No. 08/157,1981
____________
ON BRIEF
____________
Before KRASS, BARRETT and RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent
Judges.
KRASS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal No. 96-3205
Application No. 08/157,198
2
This is a decision on appeal from the final rejection of
claims 51 through 62. Claims 1 through 50 have been
cancelled.
The invention pertains to information transmission in a
bus system, best illustrated by reference to representative
independent claim 51 reproduced as follows:
51. Process for serially transmitting information
entities over a serial bus between a plurality of subscribers
(ECU1 to ECU4) connected to said serial bus at a common
transmission rate for all of said subscribers, each of said
subscribers transmitting said information entities at said
common transmission rate, said process comprising the steps
of:
a) providing each of said information entities with a
start bit (Sta), said start bit (Sta) being transmitted on
said serial bus at a beginning of transmission of each of said
information entities;
b) prior to transmitting said information entities on
said serial bus each of said subscribers transmitting said
information entities waits a predetermined bus monitoring time
period prior to said transmitting;
c) setting a flag after one of said subscribers (ECU1
to ECU4) receives one of said information entities, said flag
being set indicating receipt of said information entity by
said subscriber;
d) monitoring a logic state of said serial bus with
each of said subscribers during said bus monitoring time
period (T ) thereof at a monitoring rate sufficiently high soU
that receipt of one of said information entities is
immediately detected during receipt of said start bit (Sta) of
Appeal No. 96-3205
Application No. 08/157,198
The rejection of claim 57 was entered as a new ground2
of rejection in the examiner’s answer.
3
said information entity so detected, said start bit (Sta)
being transmitted at said common transmission rate;
e) each of said subscribers (ECU1 to ECU4) determining
a state of said flag after expiration of said bus monitoring
time period (T ) for said subscriber determining said state ofU
said flag; and
f) only transmitting said information entities from one
of said subscribers if said subscriber does not detect that
said flag is set during said bus monitoring time period (T )U
of said subscriber.
The examiner relies on the following references:
Metcalfe et al. (Metcalfe) 4,063,220 Dec. 13,
1977
Ryckeboer 4,584,575 Apr.
22, 1986
Tanaka et al. (Tanaka) 4,737,783 Apr. 12,
1988
Botzenhardt et al. 5,001,642 Mar. 19,
1991
(Botzenhardt)
Claims 51 through 62 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103.
As evidence of obviousness, the examiner cites Ryckeboer with
regard to claims 51 through 54 and 57 through 61 , adding2
Tanaka with regard to claim 55, Metcalfe with regard to claim
56 and Botzenhardt with regard to claim 62.
Appeal No. 96-3205
Application No. 08/157,198
4
Reference is made to the briefs and answer for the
respective positions of appellants and the examiner.
OPINION
At the outset, we note that, in accordance with
appellants’ grouping of the claims at page 9 of the principal
brief, all claims will stand or fall together.
We reverse.
Independent claim 51 requires, inter alia, the “setting a
flag after one of the subscribers...receives one of said
information entities,” monitoring the logic state of the
serial bus during the bus monitoring period “at a monitoring
rate sufficiently high so that receipt of one of said
information entities is immediately detected during receipt of
said start bit...of said information entity so detected,” and
“determining a state of said flag after expiration of said bus
monitoring time period.” Independent claim 58 recites similar
limitations.
Appellants argue that Ryckeboer never discusses the
setting of a flag in a transmission ready subscriber in
response to detection of the start bit of a message being
Appeal No. 96-3205
Application No. 08/157,198
5
transmitted or the subsequent testing of that flag. The
examiner counters with the argument that the argument is not
commensurate in scope with the claimed invention. More
particularly, the examiner contends that claim 51 requires
only that the flag be set after one of the subscribers
receives one of the information entities and that the set flag
indicates only receipt of an information entity by the
subscriber. This does not, necessarily, entail the setting of
the flag “in response to a start bit,” as argued by
appellants. Thus, the flag may be set in response to any part
of the information entity, or message. That being the case,
we agree with the examiner that since Ryckeboer teaches the
transmission of a message if no transmission is detected on
the bus, and claim 51 does not require setting the flag in
response to a start bit, but only in response to any part of a
message, this teaching by Ryckeboer of transmitting only if
the bus is idle is equivalent to setting a flag and then
checking as to the status of the flag.
Appellants take exception to this position, arguing in
the reply brief that under this interpretation there would be
no reason to include step d) in claim 51. However, it is our
Appeal No. 96-3205
Application No. 08/157,198
6
view that appellants’ argument in this regard is misplaced
since the monitoring step d) makes no reference to either
setting or determining the state of the flag. Hence, we do
not view the examiner’s rationale as reading step d) out of
the claim as appellants appear to suggest. The problem here
seems to stem from appellants’ assumption that step c) of
claim 51 requires setting the flag in response to a start bit,
which it does not. If step c) did, indeed, include that
language, then, perhaps, appellants’ argument would have more
credence because then step d), reciting the step of an
information entity being “detected during receipt of said
start bit,” would have a connection to the preceding step c).
As claim 51 is presently written, we do not find appellants’
argument regarding the setting and determining the state of
the flag to be persuasive.
However, we do find persuasive appellants’ argument
regarding the claimed monitoring at a “monitoring rate
sufficiently high so that receipt of one of said information
entities is immediately detected during receipt of said start
bit.” While we agree with the examiner that there is nothing
in the claim which would require the setting of a flag in
Appeal No. 96-3205
Application No. 08/157,198
7
response to a start bit, step d) of the claim clearly recites
a monitoring rate sufficiently high so that receipt of an
information entity is “immediately detected during receipt of
said start bit” [emphasis ours].
We find no teaching or suggestion of such a limitation in
Ryckeboer. The indication by Ryckeboer [column 4, lines 32-
35] that a “sampling rate is set at a higher frequency to make
sure that the synchronization is adequate during the
transmission of one character” clearly does not suggest a
“monitoring rate sufficiently high so that receipt of one of
said information entities is immediately detected during
receipt of said start bit,” as claimed.
Accordingly, we will not sustain the rejection of claims
51 through 62 under 35 U.S.C. 103. The references to Tanaka,
Metcalfe and Botzenhardt, applied by the examiner for certain
features in various dependent claims, do not provide for the
deficiency of Ryckeboer noted supra.
The examiner’s decision is reversed.
REVERSED
Appeal No. 96-3205
Application No. 08/157,198
8
ERROL A. KRASS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
LEE E. BARRETT ) APPEALS
Administrative Patent Judge ) AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO )
Administrative Patent Judge )
bae
Appeal No. 96-3205
Application No. 08/157,198
9
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