Appeal No. 2002-2180
Application No. 09/089,011
of ways in which an attendee may be notified when the user will be late for an
appointment.
The specification at page 8 provides an example of sending a message to
attendees, in the case that the user is running late. In addition to sending the message
to an attendee, the scheduling unit may receive a response back from an attendee.
For example, a message delivered using the telephone 410 might state “I
am running 45 minutes late. Press 1 to reschedule our meeting to 10:45
am. Press 2 to cancel our meeting.” The scheduling unit would then
record the attendee’s response and may send a message, such as a
pager or e-mail message, back to the user. Similarly, the scheduling unit
300 may ask the attendee to leave a voice message for later delivery to
the user. The appropriate message, requested response, and other user
information can be stored as a user profile in the scheduler database 350.
Spec. at 8, ll. 15-21.
Although an initial reading of the claim 32 limitation regarding the attendee’s
“response changing the time of the appointment” suggests a requirement that the time
of an appointment be actually changed (e.g., changed by a user or by an automated
scheduler), appellants’ disclosure makes clear that the recitation is to be interpreted
more broadly. The disclosure does not teach that the actual appointment time of a
meeting is changed by an attendee’s response. Rather, the response is recorded, and
the user may be notified of the response and its content.
We therefore consider appellants’ arguments in support of instant claim 1 to be
not commensurate in scope with the invention that is claimed. Appellants assert that
“Conmy does not disclose or suggest that an invitee declining the invitation can in any
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