Appeal No. 2002-0058
Application No. 08/859,865
representative claim 5, the examiner acknowledges that the
combination of Richter and Franaszek does not teach removing
an item from the main memory and updating the status
information concerning that item. The examiner asserts that
making room in memory was well known in the art and that it
would have been obvious to the artisan to remove an item
from memory in Richter and update status information
[answer, page 6].
Appellants argue that the removing step of their
invention is different from a “garden variety” page-out
[brief, page 9]. The examiner responds that appellants’
arguments do not show how the claim language distinguishes
from “garden variety” page-outs [answer, pages 9-10].
During patent examination, the claims are given the
broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the
specification. See In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054-55, 44
USPQ2d 1023, 1027 (Fed. Cir. 1997). Claim 5 merely recites
that one item is removed from memory when transferring
another item into memory. The claim does not incorporate
any special meaning for the term “removing.” We agree with
the examiner that it was well known in this art that an item
in main memory may have to be removed in order to make room
for a new item to be stored in memory. As noted by the
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