Appeal No. 2001-0051
Application No. 08/414,240
conventional class inheritance relationships have been shown in the evidence
appellants rely upon. (Id. at 13.)
The examiner further finds that Richter teaches that under window superclassing
a message travels first to the superclass window procedure and then to the existing or
original window procedure, referring to page 93 and Figure 2-5 of the reference.
Richter is deemed to show an “inverse” relationship in superclassing, in comparison to
standard subclassing (pp. 64-65), in which a message is first handled by a subclass
window procedure and then by the existing or original window procedure. Under
superclassing, the examiner asserts that the superclass windows inherit from the
existing or original window. (Id. at 13-14.) The examiner reiterates that Richter teaches
that the “standard” inheritance relationship (subclassing) and the “inverse” relationship
(superclassing) are alternatives to each other, pointing to pages 63 and 98 of the
reference. (Id. at 14-15.)
Appellants respond in turn that Richter relates to the WINDOWS 3.1 operating
system, and does not relate to distributed object oriented programming. As such,
appellants assert that Richter’s use of the terms “subclassing” and “superclassing” do
not have the same meaning in the art pertaining to the instant invention. (Supp. Reply
Brief at 7.)
The terms used in the claims bear a “heavy presumption” that they mean what
they say and have the ordinary meaning that would be attributed to those words by
persons skilled in the relevant art. Texas Digital Sys., Inc. v. Telegenix, Inc., 308 F.3d
-5-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007