Appeal 2007-1355
Application 09/735,499
Therefore, we will sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 2 as being
anticipated by Helfman.
Claim 4
We consider next the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claim 4 as
being anticipated by Helfman. We note that claim 4 recites: “A messaging
system according to claim 1 wherein said messaging system is a unified
messaging system.”
Appellants argue Helfman does not disclose a unified messaging
system, as claimed. Appellants interpret a unified messaging system as a
system that manages different types of messages sent to a particular user,
such as voice, facsimile, electronic mail, video or data messages.
Appellants point to the support found in the Specification at page 1, lines
14-21 (Br. 12-13).
The Examiner disagrees. The Examiner argues that Helfman’s
messaging system is broadly a “unified messaging system” because
Helfman’s messaging system “unifies” messages of different types, e.g., for
display on the screen to the user (Answer 12-13).
We see the question before us as whether Helfman discloses a
“unified messaging system” consistent with Appellants’ Specification (i.e.,
disclosing a system that integrates two or more categories of messages, such
as e-mail and voice mail). See Specification 1, ll. 14-21. We acknowledge
that Helfman discloses an e-mail system (col. 2, ll. 1-2) and a voice mail
system (col. 7, ll. 29-33). Nevertheless, we find the weight of the evidence
indicates that these systems are separate embodiments of Helfman’s
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