Appeal No. 2003-2049
Application 09/003,090
Appellants argue that Examiner’s reliance on Betts is misplaced
because Betts provides information that is completely sample
independent and cannot be reasonably considered encoded sample
information relating to the sample. See page 5 of Appellants’
reply brief.
As pointed out by our reviewing court, we must first
determine the scope of the claim. “[T]he name of the game is the
claim.” In re Hiniker Co., 150 F.3d 1362, 1369, 47 USPQ2d 1523,
1529 (Fed. Cir. 1998). Claims will be given their broadest
reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification, and
limitations appearing in the specification are not to be read
into the claims. In re Etter, 756 F.2d 852, 858, 225 USPQ 1, 5
(Fed. Cir. 1985). As our reviewing court states,
[T]he terms used in the claims bear a ‘heavy presumption’
that they mean what they say and have the ordinary meaning
that would be attributed to those words by persons skilled
in the relevant art.
Texas Digital Sys., Inc. v. Telegenix, Inc., 308 F.3d 1193, 1202,
64 USPQ2d 1812, 1817 (Fed. Cir. 2002).
Upon our review of Appellants’ specification, we fail to
find that the Appellants have made a clear definition as to the
term “sample information.” We are aware that the Appellants’
specification does state on pages 6 and 7 that
7
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