Appeal No. 1997-3240
Application 08/176,940
"patent as a whole"); Vaupel Textilmaschinen KG v. Meccanica
Euro Italia SPA, 944 F.2d 870, 880, 20 USPQ2d 1045, 1053 (Fed.
Cir. 1991) (looking to claims, specification, and drawings);
Gerber Garment Tech., Inc. v. Lectra Sys., Inc., 916 F.2d 683,
689, 16 USPQ2d 1436, 1441 (Fed. C0..ir. 1990) (noting that
preamble recitations provided antecedent basis for terms used
in body of claim).
After a review of the entire disclosure as a whole, we
find that “using a code memory for storing a plurality of code
words” is pointed out on pages 6 through 8 of the
specification as the first step in storing the sequenced
addresses of the code words.
We further find that the code memory in the preamble sets out
a relationship among the addresses of the code words and the
“0" being stored initially at each memory address.
Additionally, the claim recites the step of “entering
simultaneously ... a code word for each of a plurality of
encoding levels.”
We find that independent base claim 8 does recite
multiple process steps in a combination claim format and
satisfies the requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 112. We note that
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