Appeal No. 2003-0189
Application No. 09/627,892
Claim 10 contains the limitations of a “computer network comprising a
plurality of nodes” and that “only one of said nodes coupled to a power supply,
said other nodes receiving power over said telephone wires.” Appellant’s
specification provides a definition of a computer network as “[c]omputer networks
connect computers and other devices together so that various computers on the
network can share files programs and resources” see page 1, lines 5-7 of
appellant’s specification. Thus, by appellant’s definition a computer network has
more than one computer. The term “node” is not defined in the appellant’s
specification. The plain meaning of “node” is “ a junction point in a network”2.
This definition is consistent with the usage in the appellant’s specification on
page 5 lines 25-27, which describe a node capable of being a pass through, and
on page 6, lines 1-2, which identifies that a node may also act as a hub. Thus,
we find that the scope of claim 10 includes a network which connects several
computers, the network includes several junction points (nodes) and that only
one of the nodes is connected to a power source, the others nodes receive
power over the telephone wires.
Having determined the scope of the relative potions of the claims we
next turn to the rejection based upon 35 U.S.C. § 103. It is the burden of the
2 Definition taken from McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, Fifth
Edition, 1994.
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