Appeal No. 2005-2642
Reexamination Control No. 90/005,841
evidences an intent to have the phrase “directly responsive to” construed as requiring a
continuous relationship.
Appellant’s argument that the foregoing definition from the ‘461 patent requires
us to construe the claims as requiring that the inflation adjustments be a continuous
function of the rate of prior actual inflation is wrong on two counts. First, as explained
above, the phrase “directly responsive to” in the definition does not imply a continuous
relationship. Second, even assuming it does, the definition does not address the
relationship between the inflation adjustments and the rate of inflation. Instead, it
addresses the relationship between the inflation adjustments and “a market indicator of
prior actual inflation,” which need not represent the rate of prior actual inflation. In fact,
appellant’s disclosed market indicators of prior actual inflation represent inflated price
levels, from which the inflation rates and the resulting inflation adjustments are
calculated:
Once the current inflation index (CPIc) is determined, the level of inflation
since the last reporting period is estimated by consideration of a
preselected inflation index which reflects prior actual inflation. A preferred
embodiment of the present invention utilizes the consumer price index
CPI-U, for all items. However, any number of indexes may be
successfully utilized including, but not limited to CPI-W, Producer Price
Index, the Implicit Price Deflator for the Gross National Product, or any
component of these price level measures so long as the index reflects
some measure of past inflation. The level [of] inflation which has occurred
since the previous iteration period can be determined by the formula:
CPIc - CPIo
—————–
CPIo
Where CPIo i[s] the inflation index at the time of the last iteration, or the
initial index if the present iteration is the first.
‘673 Patent at col. 6, ll. 27-46 (emphasis added). “If . . . inflation has occurred during
the prior iteration period, the cash outflow or disbursement attributable to the effects of
inflation on the account balance is determined by applying the inflation rate to the
deposit balance.” Id. at col. 6, ll. 58-62. Because the “market indicator of prior actual
inflation” need not represent the rate of prior actual inflation, a claim recitation that an
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