Appeal No. 1997-3822
Application No. 08/406,668
claim 6? In the absence of satisfactory answers to these
questions, we are unable to sustain the rejections as to of
any of the appealed claims. 4
We have, however, found several of appellant's other
arguments unpersuasive. The first is that "Nagata is
addressed to a problem quite different and distinct from that
addressed by applicant's invention" in that "[i]n Nagata, a
means is provided for a user to store a message on a card that
he or she carries" (Brief at 10). Be that as it may,
appellant has not cited any claim language which precludes
recording the claimed voice-mail message on a card. Likewise,
we do not agree that "there is clearly no teaching in Nagata,
nor even remote suggestion, of a voice-mail transmitter which
4We note that while claims 14 and 24 call for
"storing a caller's voice-mail message in the event the caller
selects a voice-mail message," they do not require that this
storage operation occur at the site of the called party and
thus do not preclude the storage operation from being read
onto Nagata's technique of storing the voice-mail messages in
memory 41 of exchanger 4. However, in order to read these
claims onto this technique, the examiner would still have to
explain how the same telephone number can be used for both
types of transmissions, including how the exchanger
distinguishes between voice-mail messages (which are to be
stored) and standard telephone calls (which are to be
transmitted).
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