Appeal No. 2003-0189
Application No. 09/627,892
First we consider the rejection of claims 10 and 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as being unpatentable of over Bell in view of Rosen et al.
The examiner states on page 3 of the answer that it would be obvious to
“utilize Rosen’s power source . . . over the phone line network to other self-
powered nodes.” Further, on page 5 of the answer, the examiner states “it is
submitted that any known telephone techniques would have been obviously
applied including the use of Rosen’s high frequency power source for providing
power to self-powered nodes on the phone line network.”
Appellant argues that the combination of the references fail “to teach that
only one of the nodes of a computer network is coupled to the power supply and
the other nodes receiving power over the telephone lines” see paragraph
bridging pages 6 and 7 of the brief. Appellant also argues on page 7 of the brief,
“there is no rationale to modify either Bell or Rosen with the teachings of the
other. There would be no reason to apply telephone techniques in a computer
network absent some teaching that is explicit in one of the references to do so.”
Before we consider the teachings of the references we must first
determine the scope of the claim. Claims will be given their broadest reasonable
interpretation consistent with the specification, limitations appearing in the
specification will not be read into the claims. In re Etter 756 F.2d 852, 858, 225
USPQ 1, 5 (Fed. Cir. 1985). In analyzing the scope of the claim, office
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