Appeall No. 1998-1398 Page 20
Application No. 08/400,637
limitations are not to be read into the claims from the
specification.” In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184, 26
USPQ2d 1057, 1059 (Fed. Cir. 1993)(citing In re Zletz, 893
F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989)).
Furthermore, “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.” In re
Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480, 31 USPQ2d 1671, 1674 (Fed. Cir.
1994) (citing Carroll Touch, Inc. v. Electro Mechanical Sys.,
Inc., 15 F.3d 1573, 1577, 27 USPQ2d 1836, 1840 (Fed. Cir.
1993)).
Here, representative claim 31 specifies in pertinent part
the following limitation: “automatically assigning a route for
an incoming call ....” Because neither the specification nor
the file history defines the term “automatically” nor suggests
that the appellants sought to assign a meaning to the term
different from its ordinary and accustomed meaning, that is
the meaning we must give it. Something that is automatic is
defined as "operating by its own mechanism when actuated by
Page: Previous 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007