Appeal No. 1996-2480
Application 08/163,825
Appellants argue that neither reference teaches a perceptron
node as defined by Appellants' specification.
On page 5 of the answer, the Examiner responds to
the above Appellants' argument. In particular, the Examiner
argues that the perceptron node as described in the
"Background of the Invention" is not stated in the claims and,
therefore, is not relevant to whether the reference teaches
this limitation or not. Our reviewing court states in In
re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir.
1989) that "claims must be interpreted as broadly as their
terms reasonably allow." Moreover, 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. Carroll Touch, Inc. v. Electro Mechanical Sys.,
Inc., 15 F.3d 1573, 1577, 27 USPQ2d 1836, 1840 (Fed. Cir.
1993). Although an inventor is indeed free to define the
specific terms used to describe his or her invention, this
must be done with reasonable clarity, deliberateness, and
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