Appeal No. 2002-2034
Application No. 09/175,080
which depend therefrom. We decline to exercise our authority
under 37 CFR § 1.196(b) as, on this record. The issue of whether
this disclosure may render the claimed invention, as interpreted
above, obvious within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. § 103 has not been
fully developed and would benefit from further prosecution on the
merits.
Turning now to claim 8, we note that the term “following” is
absent from the claim. Rather, the claim requires that the send
operation be completed as a “single operation.” The appellant
interprets this as requiring that all of the destinations are
entered before any of the facsimile messages are sent. We
disagree with the appellant’s narrow interpretation of claim 8. In
examining a patent claim, the PTO must apply the broadest
reasonable meaning to the claim language, taking into account any
definitions presented in the specification. In re Yamamoto, 740
F.2d 1569, 1571, 222 USPQ 934, 936 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
Here, unlike claim 1, there is no requirement that all the
transmissions to each individual destination occur after the entry
of the additional destinations. Thus, we agree with the examiner
that the provision of the interrupt button by Fukushima
anticipates the subject matter of claim 8 and we shall affirm this
portion of the rejection.
Claim 15 is similar to claim 8, in that the transmission
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