Appeal No. 2005-2686
Application No. 09/879,823
what appellants’ specification supports. The interpretation of
the phrase argued by appellants is not supported by appellants’
specification.
Appellants argue that the Board improperly read the
condition of fraud into the claimed invention for purposes of
considering whether the phrase a “predetermined number of times”
was supported by appellants’ specification [request, pages 20-
23]. We are not persuaded by this argument. The decision in
this case simply dismissed appellants’ proposed second meaning of
the phrase a ”predetermined number of times” because the
specification teaches that a coupon can only be redeemed once as
a measure to prevent fraud. The decision simply notes that the
meaning of the phrase proposed by appellants would not perform
the important function of fraud protection as taught by the
disclosure.
In summary, we have granted appellants’ request for
rehearing to the extent that we have vacated our decision with
respect to sustaining the rejection of claim 61 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, and that we have designated our sustaining of the
rejection of all claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as a new ground
of rejection under 37 CFR § 41.50(b). The request for rehearing
is denied with respect to all other issues raised in the request.
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007