Appeal No. 2004-0205 Page 3
Application No. 09/591,167
Each of appellants’ claims requires a “portable” transmitter and claims 19 and 20
further require that the portable transmitter be carried by a trainer. It is apparent from a
reading of both the examiner’s position and appellants’ position that the issue in dispute
in this appeal focuses on the term “portable.” For an understanding of that term in the
context of appellants’ invention, we thus turn to appellants’ specification, which states
on page 6 that
what would be truly useful would be a system that comprises
a form of “electronic leash” or training device which can be
variably preset by an animal owner and operated in
automatic mode to help train and control an animal when the
owner and animal are moving such as when the owner is
walking the animal. Such a system and method would allow
the training of an animal to take place regardless of the
location of the owner. Such a system would allow an owner
to train an animal in the animal’s own backyard and, when
the owner and animal are in another location other than the
home. Such a system would be portable and operate
without the need of a connection to household current at all
times.
On the basis of this disclosure, we understand the term “portable” as used in
appellants’ claims to mean “that can be used anywhere because operated by self-
contained batteries”1 and thus as a system (transmitter) which operates without the
need of a connection to household current at all times, as exactly set forth in appellants’
specification, rather than simply “capable of being carried or moved about” as posited
by the examiner on page 6 of the answer.
1 Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition (Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1988).
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