Appeal 2007-0601
Application 09/792,290
Trade Commission, 831 F.2d 1017, 1023, 4 USPQ2d 1283, 1288 (Fed. Cir.
1987).
ANALYSIS
Independent claims 1, 18, and 19
Appellants argue that DeNicola does not teach, show, or suggest
“transmitting processed feedback to a group member, comprising feedback
received from at least two group members and regarding material being
presented, as claimed in Appellants’ independent claims 1, 18 and 19” (Br.
7:13-17). We disagree that the claim language explicitly requires that the
processed feedback transmitted to a single group member contain
information (“feedback”) that was received from at least two group
members.
Exemplary Claim 1 calls for (a) “receiving feedback from a plurality
of individual group members regarding material being presented by a group
leader”; (b) “processing the feedback to generate processed feedback, said
processed feedback comprising feedback received from at least two of said
group members”; and (c) “transmitting the processed feedback to the
networked devices operated by the group members.”
The word “feedback” is used interchangeably in this application, and
in the English language as a whole, as either a singular or plural noun. The
same thing can of course be said of the claim phrase “processed feedback.”
Applying this principle to Appellants’ claims, Appellants recite processing
the (plural items of) feedback received from a plurality of individual group
members to generate (one or more items of) processed feedback, said
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