Appeal No. 2005-2643
Reexamination Control No. 90/005,842
The principal point of contention regarding the scope and meaning of the claims
is the
relationship between the rate of prior actual inflation and the resulting inflation
adjustments of the deposit and loan accounts. Appellant contends that the claims
require a continuous (i.e., nonstepped) relationship between the inflation adjustments
and the inflation rates such that different amounts of prior actual inflation will result in
different inflation adjustments. For the following reasons, we do not agree.
Claim 1 recites the relationship between the rate of inflation and the resulting
inflation adjustment in two different ways, the first being to describe it as a “function” in
the steps of “adjusting the amount in each deposit account as a function of a rate of
inflation” and “adjusting the amount in the loan account as a [f]unction of a rate of
inflation.” The second is to call for “receiving repayment of the loan account . . . in a
manner where the funds in the loan account obtain a rate of return responsive to a rate
of inflation.” We will begin by addressing the meaning of the phrase “as a function of a
rate of inflation.” Neither this phrase nor the term “function” is defined in the
specification. Appellant cites Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 498 (1987)
(Exhibit E to brief), which gives a number of definitions of “function,” of which appellant
relies on the following: “5 a: a mathematical correspondence that assigns exactly one
element of one set to each element of the same or another set b: a variable (as a
quality, trait, or measurement) that depends on and varies with another (height is a ~ of
age).” Brief at 10. While the examiner correctly observed that the term “function” is
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