Appeal No. 96-0125
Application 07/878,100
collective teachings of Vela and Humble would not have been
combined as proposed by the examiner, we nevertheless are of the
view that the invention as broadly recited in claim 1 is broad
enough to be suggested by the teachings of Humble by itself. As
we noted above in our consideration of the examiner’s rejection,
appellants’ arguments are not commensurate in scope with the
invention as recited in claim 1. We shall address the breadth of
claim 1 and provide our analysis as to why the invention of claim
1 would have been obvious in view of Humble.
Although claim 1 is written in “means plus function”
form, claims undergoing examination are given their broadest
reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification. In
re Donaldson, 16 F.3d 1189, 1194, 29 USPQ2d 1845, 1850 (Fed. Cir.
1994) (in banc). Based upon the record developed in this case so
far, we find nothing in claim 1 which patentably distinguishes
over what Humble alone suggests.
Appellants apparently rely on the claim term “remote” to
require that the unit be placed on a shopping cart. However,
claim 1 does not require that the remote unit be remote from a
checkout area. Appellants’ argument that “remote” requires that
the remote unit be at the point of selection is not commensurate
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