Appeal No. 2002-2023 Paper 31
Application No. 08/689,526 Page 4
IV. Claim construction
As the Federal Circuit has observed, "the name of the game is the claim," In re
Hiniker Co., 150 F.3d 1362, 1369, 47 USPQ2d 1523, 1529 (Fed. Cir. 1998). Claim
interpretation begins with the claims themselves, the written description, and, if in
evidence, the prosecution history. CCS Fitness, Inc. v. Brunswick Corp., 288 F.3d
1359, 1366, 62 USPQ2d 1658, 1665-66 (Fed. Cir. 2002). See In re Bond, 910 F.2d
831, 833, 15 USPQ2d 1566, 1567 (Fed. Cir. 1990) ("It is axiomatic that ... claims in an
application are to be given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the
specification, ... and that claim language should be read in light of the specification as it
would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art.")
Here, all of the claims on appeal require a step of or a means for providing
predetermined pointer movement control actions "including the steps of changing a
speed of pointer movement responsive to said compared pointer movement line with
said barrier; and changing an orientation of the pointer responsive to said compared
pointer movement line with said barrier." We begin by construing these two phrases.
A. Claim construction of the phrase "changing a speed of pointer
movement responsive to said compared pointer movement line with
said barrier."
According to appellant's specification, changing speed includes a change in
actual speed, e.g., slowing down a moving cursor, as well as stopping the pointer's
movement all together, e.g., preventing the cursor from crossing a barrier line (see e.g.,
p. 5, ll. 1-4). Furthermore, dependent claims 6, 13 and 16 are directed to a method and
apparatus and computer program product, respectively, wherein the predetermined
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