Appeal 2006-3087
Application 09/821,553
that produces the criteria input by the user. The design is then used to
produce a battery. See column 25, lines 35 through 38 and 46 through 48.
Notten is silent as to whether the user inputting the criteria for the battery is
made aware of the models being used.
The Examiner has taken Official notice that it is well known that
“proprietary information/parameters related to the specifics of the
software/models are kept confidential from customers.” See page 4 of the
Answer. Appellants’ arguments on page 13 of the Brief, which discuss the
facts noticed by the Examiner, do not contest the facts. See page 13 of the
Brief. Thus, in the absence of evidence and arguments to the contrary, we
find that at the time of the invention it was known to keep specific details of
software models from customers.
PRINCIPLES OF LAW
Office personnel must rely on Appellants’ disclosure to properly
determine the meaning of the terms used in the claims. Markman v.
Westview Instruments, Inc., 52 F3d 967, 980, 34 USPQ2d 1321, 1330 (Fed.
Cir. 1995). “[I]nterpreting what is meant by a word in a claim ‘is not to be
confused with adding an extraneous limitation appearing in the specification,
which is improper.’” (emphasis original) In re Cruciferous Sprout
Litigation, 301 F.3d 1343, 1348, 64 USPQ2d 1202, 1205, (Fed. Cir. 2002)
(citing Intervet America Inc v. Kee-Vet Laboratories Inc., 12 USPQ2d 1474,
1476 (Fed. Cir. 1989).
ANALYSIS
Independent claim 1 recites: “providing more than one model of a
charge storage device,” wherein the model converts at least one of a
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013