Appeal No. 2002-0831
Application 08/250,286
The examiner responds that many of the issues related to
this rejection were decided in the previous decision by the Board
of Patent Appeals and Interferences (Board). The examiner notes
how the claimed invention is deemed to be taught by Toyoshima.
The examiner asserts that the function table in Figure 1 of
Toyoshima clearly illustrates the use of different versions of
the motor within the same appliance [answer, pages 7-9].
Appellants respond that the previous decision of the
Board is irrelevant to this appeal because the claims are
different. Appellants assert that Toyoshima only teaches
different conditions for a single appliance but not different
models of a single appliance. With respect to table 15 of
Toyoshima, appellants argue that the functions therein relate to
a single appliance and not to different appliance environments or
platforms [reply brief, pages 15-16].
Although the claims in this appeal are different from the
claims considered on the previous appeal, the question before us
is similar in that our decision is fundamentally determined on
claim interpretation. In the previous decision, the definition
of “operating characteristic information” was the key phrase
which required interpretation. In this case it is the phrase
“different appliance environments” which requires interpretation.
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