Appeal No. 2001-0051
Application No. 08/414,240
1193, 1202, 64 USPQ2d 1812, 1817 (Fed. Cir. 2002). Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and
treatises are particularly useful resources in determining the ordinary and customary
meanings of claim terms. Id. at 1202, 64 USPQ2d at 1818. Indeed, these materials
may be the most meaningful sources of information in better understanding both the
technology and the terminology used by those skilled in the art to describe the
technology. Id. at 1203, 64 USPQ2d at 1818.
We thus consider it of no moment that appellants chose not to include a
definition for “inheritance” in their disclosure. Appellants have provided evidence to
show the meaning that would be attributed to the term by persons skilled in the art of
object-oriented analysis and design. We interpret the instant claims accordingly.
We find that Richter discloses that, under the WINDOWS 3.1 operating system,
a window class may be registered whereby a procedure processes messages
pertaining to all instances of windows in the class. Whenever a new window is created,
the system allocates a block of memory containing information specific to that window.
Richter at 63. To subclass a window, a user changes the window procedure address in
the window’s memory block to point to a new window procedure. Because the address
is changed in one window’s memory block, it does not affect any other windows created
from the same class. All messages destined for the original window will be sent to the
user’s own window procedure. A message may be stopped from being passed to the
original procedure, or it may be altered before sending it. However, most messages are
passed to the original procedure. The reason for subclassing is usually to alter the
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