Appeal No. 2002-1498
Application No. 09/042,202
contents of the debit register be transferred into the credit
register. There is nothing even requiring that anything in the
debit register be transferred to the credit register. The claim
merely requires that an initial credit value be loaded into a
debit register on a second node (Barker clearly does this, at
column 4, lines 39-41, wherein an initial credit value of n is
loaded into debit register 34 on second node, or receiver, 14)
and “transferring the initial credit value into the credit
register....” This latter portion of the claim does not recite
transferring the contents of the debit register. In fact, it
does not require any connection with the debit register. It
merely requires the transferring of the initial credit value
(which, in Barker’s case, is “n”) into the credit register.
Since the initial credit value of n is “transferred” into the
credit register 30 of sender 12, no matter where from, the terms
of the claim are met.
Accordingly, we will sustain the rejection of claim 1 under
35 U.S.C. 102(e) and also the rejection of claim 4 since the
merits of this claim are not separately argued.
Similarly, since independent claim 17 is merely the
apparatus counterpart to method claim 1 and includes similar
language, we will also sustain the rejection of claim 17, and of
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