Appeal No. 2004-0538
Application No. 09/976,495
AAPA allows the new value to be seen and entered into the home memory
or, more importantly, only partially or erroneously entered in the event of a
failure of the sending node before the entire new value is in the home
memory. The coherence controller does not “flush”, or force, the new value
into the second system control unit so as to “assure” the new value is
actually entered into the home memory.
In response to these arguments, the examiner asserts, on page 5 of the answer,
the AAPA “clearly states that the prior art writes back (i.e., flushes) the data to the other
nodes.” Further, the examiner notes that in the AAPA “The home node employs a
coherence protocol to ensure that when a node writes a new value to the memory block,
all other nodes see this latest value.” (Page 6 of the examiner’s answer, quoting page 2
of appellants’ specification). Finally, the examiner concludes “Appellants can not
distinguish their invention which ‘flushes’ and ‘assures,’ from the prior art, which merely
writes-back all updates, that ensures that all other nodes see the updated value and that
further guarantees coherency.” (emphasis original).
We disagree with the examiner’s interpretation of the claim and his conclusion that
the claimed invention is not differentiated from AAPA. 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 personnel must rely on the
appellant’s disclosure to properly determine the meaning of the terms used in the claims.
Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., 52 F3d 967, 980, 34 USPQ2d 1321, 1330
(Fed. Cir. 1995). “[I]nterpreting what is meant by a word in a claim ‘is not to be confused
with adding an extraneous limitation appearing in the specification, which is improper.’”
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