Appeal No. 2002-1755
Application No. 09/173,286
greeting module avoids the duplication and multiple distribution
intrinsic to the multiple-party forwarding process by providing a
central interface through which each contributor may interact
independently of the other contributors. Appellants also point
out that their parallel greeting module provides a single storage
point for the message so that only one copy of each contribution
need be stored.
The examiner dismisses appellants’ arguments as trying to
read limitations from the specification into the claims. While
the specific arguments of appellants are, indeed, absent from the
claims, we agree with appellants that since the term “parallel
greeting module” is not a commonly understood term, one must look
to the specification to understand its meaning and definition.
When the specification is referenced, one finds that this term is
described at page 14, where parallel annotation is described as
entailing a system receiving greeting inputs from the
contributors who connect to the system at any time before a pre-
determined time limit expires. The system composes a greeting
from the contributor inputs and delivers the greeting to the
recipient. When parallel annotation is selected, the system
contacts each contributor and prompts the contributors to connect
to the system and provide a greeting input. As further explained
-11–
Page: Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007