Appeal No. 2005-1431
Application 09/442,070
The question of whether appellant's '701 patent provides written description support for
the claims thus construed is to be judged as of the September 4, 1996, filing date of Application
08/707,684, which issued as the '701 patent.36
1. The "network" limitations
There is no dispute regarding the meanings of the terms "network" and "network server,"
which are not defined in the Doyle specification but are defined as follows in Microsoft Press
Computer Dictionary 327, 329, 430 (3d ed. 1997):37
network . . . n. A group of computers and associated devices that are
connected together by communications facilities. . . .
network server . . . n. See server.
server . . . n. 1. On a local area network (LAN), a computer running
administrative software that controls access to the network and its resources,
such as printers and disk drives, and provides resources to computers
functioning as workstations on the network. 2. On the Internet or other
network, a computer or program that responds to commands from a client. . . .
The examiner's position is that (a) one skilled in the art would have understood
appellants' patent to be disclosing "an improvement over [a] prior art compound document, in a
single workstation environment; as set forth in [the] Background of the Invention. See the '701
[patent], col. 1, line 22 - col. 2, line 43," Final Action at 9, and (b) that "no teaching explicitly or
36 Inasmuch as appellants are not trying to antedate a reference, it is not necessary to
consider whether the claims thus construed have descriptive support in the parent or grandparent
application.
37 Copies of these definitions were enclosed with the April 26, 2001, Office action
(Paper No. 18).
39
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