Appeal 2007-1317
Application 09/731,623
We begin our analysis by broadly but reasonably construing the
recited term “user authentication” in a manner consistent with the
Specification (claim 1). See In re Hyatt, 211 F.3d 1367, 1372, 54 USPQ2d
1664, 1667 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (“[D]uring examination proceedings, claims are
given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the
specification.”). When we look to the Specification for context, we agree
with the Examiner that the claimed first and the second user authentications
are not limited to authentication actually performed by human entry (i.e.,
performed by the user). Indeed, we find the Specification provides broad
support for operations that require no action on the part of a human operator:
Note that the invention may describe terms such as comparing,
validating, selecting, identifying, or other terms that could be
associated with a human operator. However, for at least a
number of the operations described herein which form part of at
least one of the embodiments, no action by a human operator is
desirable.
(Specification 10, ll. 10-13).
In this way an authentication mechanism is implemented which
permits a user to selectively authenticate without necessarily
giving up already established access. (Note that a user need not
refer to a “human” user but may, for example, include a proxy
server running under a user's identity.)
(Specification p. 13, l. 21 - p. 14, l. 1).
We further agree with the Examiner that Wu teaches multiple logical
authentication services that are aggregated (i.e., stacked) so as to permit a
single unified login to access multiple authentication services, as follows:
The ability to use multiple different ones of a given account
management service is called “stacking,” and it is particularly
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