Appeal No. 2002-0831
Application 08/250,286
The claimed invention essentially associates a different
appliance environment with a corresponding operating
characteristic information [note recitation of second memory and
plurality of switches]. Thus, although the claims are different,
the question before us is similar to the previous appeal because
the meaning of different appliance environments is tied to the
meaning of operating characteristic information.
We have considered appellants’ specification, and we can
find no specific definition of “different appliance
environments.” Appellants have argued a somewhat limited
definition of this phrase in the same way that they argued a
limited definition of operating characteristic information as we
noted in the previous decision [Appeal No. 1997-1359].
In our view, the phrase “different appliance
environments” is broad enough to be met by the vacuum cleaner of
Toyoshima in which the different environments include different
surfaces such as carpet, tatami, sofa and curtains. In other
words, we find that the vacuum cleaner of Toyoshima is set to a
different appliance environment for carpet than it is for
curtains. There is no reason on this record why the different
appliance environments should be interpreted to mean different
types of appliances or different types of motors within a single
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