Appeal No. 2005-2643
Reexamination Control No. 90/005,842
broadest reasonable one and will so construe the phrase “rate of inflation” in all of the
claims. As for the effect of the use of “directly responsive to” instead of “responsive to”
in the definition, the broadest reasonable interpretation of the chosen phraseology is
that it was meant to emphasize that the calculations of inflation adjustments must be
based on the market indicator data which represents prior actual inflation (e.g., the CPI-
U). See The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 373 (copy
enclosed) (New College Edition, 1975) (hereinafter American Heritage Dictionary)
(defining “directly” to mean: “1. In a direct line or manner; straight. . . . 2. Without
anyone or anything intervening; immediately.”). Nothing in the specification clearly
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 ‘673 patent requires
us to construe claim 1 as requiring that the inflation adjustments in the deposit and loan
accounts be continuous functions 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
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