Appeal No. 97-2762
Application No. 08/309,845
wiring located at the premises to a radio transceiver which is
part of a radio system." Since appellants has not argued that
the claims should be interpreted with the sixth paragraph of
35 U.S.C. § 112 in mind, we will apply a broadest reasonable
interpretation to these claims. In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048,
1054, 44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
We agree with appellants’ argument (Brief, page 7) that
"[t]he claims cannot be read in a vacuum and divorced from the
specification, but must be construed in light of the
specification." On the other hand, it is improper to narrow
the scope of the claims by implicitly reading into the claims
limitations from the specification which have no express basis
in the claims. In other words, appellants are not permitted
to engage "in a post hoc attempt to redefine the claimed
invention by impermissibly incorporating language appearing in
the specification into the claims." In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d
1475, 1480, 31 USPQ2d 1671, 1674 (Fed. Cir. 1994). Thus, the
"second means" in claim 29, the "means for coupling" in claim
47, and the "coupling" step of claim 52 all read on "the
wiring coupling the landline telephone [7] to the PBX 5 . . .
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007