Appeal No. 1997-3581
Application No. 08/010,291
in the specification, the words of a claim must be given their
plain meaning. In other words, they must be read as they
would be interpreted by those of ordinary skill in the art.
In re Sneed, 710 F.2d 1544, 1547, 218 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir.
1983). It is apparent to us that the only reasonable
interpretation of the language of the claims before us
requires a creation of execution procedures before a user
inputs a query, a concept not taught or suggested in
Heffernan. It is also apparent from the Examiner’s line of
reasoning in the Answer that, since the Examiner has
mistakenly interpreted the disclosure of Heffernan as
disclosing the claimed execution procedure creation feature,
the issue of the obviousness of this feature has not been
addressed. In our view, the Examiner’s implication that
Heffernan’s execution creation procedure is somehow equivalent
to that required by Appellant’s claims since both consider
cost reduction factors can only be supported by an
unreasonable interpretation of the language of the appealed
claims.
Since all of the claim limitations are not taught or
suggested by the applied prior art, it is our opinion that the
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