Appeal No. 96-3242
Application 08/458,012
not make a new record medium. The Examiner argues that the
claimed information content of the record medium as recited in
the claims are not functionally related to the record medium
structure.
We note that claims 21, 24 and 25 are directed to a
method and not a record medium. Upon a careful review of
Miura, we fail to find that Miura teaches these claimed method
steps.
Turning to Appellants' claims 20, 22 and 23, we note the
claims are reciting a disc having record data which performs a
particular function dealing with the retrieval of data from
the disc. Our reviewing court held that patentable weight
must be given to a limitation which defines data stored on a
disc that defines functional characteristics of the memory.
In re Lowry, 32 USPQ2d 1031, 1034 (Fed. Cir. 1994). We find
that the argued limitations recited in claims 20, 22 and 23
define a functional relationship with the memory. Therefore,
we find that Miura fails to teach all of the limitations of
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