Appeal No. 95-4187
Application 07/835,374
performed based upon data contained within the actor as
alleged by the Examiner.
As pointed out by our reviewing court, we must first
determine the scope of the claim. "[T]he name of the game is
the claim.” In re Hiniker Co., 150 F.3d 1362, 1369, 47 USPQ2d
1523, 1529 (Fed. Cir. 1998).
We note that Appellants' claim 1 recites "selecting
and/or changing the element knowledge in accordance with the
contents of the harmonizing knowledge" (emphasis added). The
use of the Appellants' claim language, "and/or," reasonably
allows for the reading of claim language as only requiring
selecting the element knowledge in accordance with the
contents of the harmonizing knowledge.
Moreover, when interpreting a claim, words of the
claim are generally given their ordinary and accustomed
meaning, unless it appears from the specification or the file
history that they were used differently by the inventor.
Carroll Touch, Inc. v. Electro Mechanical Sys., Inc., 15 F.3d
1573, 1577, 27 USPQ2d 1836, 1840 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Although
an inventor is indeed free to define the specific terms used
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