Appeal No. 2000-0545
Application 08/638,339
As pointed out by our reviewing court, we must first determine the scope of the
claim. “[T]he name of the game is the claim.” In re Hiniker Co., 150 F.3d 1362, 1369,
47 USPQ2d 1523, 1529 (Fed. Cir. 1998). Moreover, when interpreting a claim, words of
the claim are generally given their ordinary and accustomed meaning, unless it appears
from the specification or the file history that they were used differently by the inventor.
Carroll Touch, Inc. v. Electro Mechanical Sys., Inc., 15 F.3d 1573, 1577, 27 USPQ2d
1836, 1840 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Although an inventor is indeed free to define the specific
terms used to describe his or her invention, this must be done with reasonable clarity,
deliberateness, and precision. In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480, 31 USPQ2d 1671,
1674 (Fed. Cir. 1994). Our reviewing court states in In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321, 13
USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989) that “claims must be interpreted as broadly as their
terms reasonably allow.”
We note that Appellant’s claim 1 recites a “memory for storing a user built
channel map comprising a plurality of user channel identifiers that have each been
assigned by the user to correlate to one of the channel numbers of the two or more
sources . . .” (emphasis added). We must determine the scope of the phrase “user built
channel map” as well as the phrase “assigned by the user to correlate to one of the
channel numbers.”
Addressing the phrase “user built channel map,” Appellant’s specification states
that “[t]he user builds a map in memory that correlates a channel input with a particular
source.” Specification, page 16, lines 5-7. Default values in the channel map decision
list may be overridden by the user via user responses to on-screen menus. Specification,
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