Appeal No. 2000-1711
Application 08/808,870
Claims 13, 14, 26, and 27
Claim 13 requires a speaker and an encoder which encodes the
message in a series of sounds which are emitted by the speaker.
This permits a one-way pager to send messages via a conventional
telephone as described in connection with figure 3 at page 11,
line 21 to page 12, line 15 of the specification.
The examiner finds that Metroka has a speaker 110 and an
encoder/decoder 330 which encodes the message in a series of
sounds which are emitted by the speaker (EA7-8).
Appellants argue that the speaker in Metroka is only used in
the course of a telephone call in the conventional manner and
does not teach that the speaker emits a series of sounds which
represent a message input to the device using a character display
and selection controls (Br10-11).
The examiner responds that the "limitation has no patentable
weight, and on [sic, one] skilled in the art could have used
Metroka's speaker to emit a series of sounds which represent a
message input to the device using a character display" (EA10).
Appellants question the examiner's ability to disregard
claim limitations for no apparent reason and without any
explanation (RBr7). It is argued that it is irrelevant that the
prior art could have used the speaker in Metroka in the manner
claimed (RBr8).
- 10 -
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007