Appeal No. 2001-0040
Application No. 09/037,105
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
appellant regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the examiner's
answer (Paper No. 17, mailed Jun. 20, 2000) for the examiner's reasoning in support of
the rejections, and to appellant's amended brief (Paper No. 23, filed Mar. 13, 2002) in
accordance with the amended appendix (Paper No. 27, filed Jul. 9, 2002) and reply
brief (Paper No. 18, filed Aug. 17, 2000) for appellant's arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
appellant's specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
As pointed out by the Federal Circuit, we must first establish 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
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