Appeal No. 2005-0321
Application No. 09/575,776
information viewed through a display screen as claimed in claim 10, and “output
device” of claim 13.
The examiner states, on page 7 of the answer, that the “device of
Silverbrook (‘290) is capable of reading, viewing or printing any file information
including the file directory information (i.e. directory of the audio or video files).
What Silverbrook did not disclose, is that the device is for processing the only
[sic, only the] file directory information.” Further, on page 7 of the answer, the
examiner states the “claims of the instant application do not recite any software
in support for the specific function (i.e. processing only the file directory
information). Regarding the processor which is the main computer component,
the claims only broadly state that the processor [is] programmed to read and
communicate only file information, which any computer processor is designed
to do.” The examiner concludes, “[t]hus, [the] claims are silent regarding the
specific way the processor is programmed in order to process only file directory
information.”
We concur with the examiner’s assessment of Silverbrook’s teachings,
however, we disagree with the examiner’s claim interpretation. We find that each
of appellant’s independent claims 1, 6, 10 and 13 is directed to a device (or
method) that operates only with the file directory information. Claim 1 contains in
the preamble the limitation “a portable apparatus for reading only file directory
information,”and we find that the preamble does further limit the claim as the
remainder of the limitations in the claim, the drive component, the loading
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