Appeal No. 2002-1474 Page 20
Application No. 09/002,927
symbol to encompass a graphical arrow. It is further asserted
(id.) that as shown in appellants' figure 6, that character data
includes text data and not graphical information.
From our review of the specification, we find that although
appellants refer to characters as being text, we find no
exclusion of character data in the form of a symbol. We note1
that a character can be a symbol as well as text. We
additionally note2 that the symbol ' is a standard WordPerfect
character. Because the arrow symbol is a well known character,
and the specification does not preclude the use of symbols as
characters, we find that Furuya's disclosure of a graphical
arrowhead as a representation of the direction of the driver's
vehicle meets the recited display of the vehicle's position as a
character of claims 7, 8, 24, and 25. If appellants want to
limit these claims to text characters, then the claims should
recite that the driver's vehicle position is displayed in the
form of text characters. We decline to read into the claims
limitations not found therein.
1 IBM Dictionary of Computing, Tenth Edition, © 1994. A
copy of pertinent pages is attached to the decision.
2
2 Mastering WordPerfect 5.1 & 5.2 for Windows © 1992. A
copy of pertinent pages is attached to the decision.
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