Appeal No. 1999-2304
Application 08/667,242
who are part of the organization and, therefore, are not
public as that term is used in the application [brief, pages
11-14].
Once again, we agree with the position argued by
appellants. The examiner is correct that the phrase “one
or more remote independent public directory services” should
be given its broadest reasonable interpretation consistent
with the specification. The main point of appellants’
specification, however, is that the public directory service
is available to permit the scheduling of a participant in a
multi-point electronic conference who is not in the user’s
private address books. Appellants’ disclosed use of the term
public directory services is consistent with the usual meaning
of public which is that knowledge is accessible to all. The
address books of Ludwig are not “public” since they are only
available to users of the network.
Therefore, we do not sustain the rejection of the
claims based on Saiki and Ludwig. Since Weiner does not
overcome the deficiencies of Saiki and Ludwig, we also do not
sustain the rejection of the claims based on all three
references.
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