Appeal 2007-1726
Application 09/976,621
application.” (Reply Br. 2, ¶2). In spite of having an opportunity to respond
in the Reply Brief to the Examiner’s reliance upon extrinsic evidence in
construing the claim terms “backprojecting” and “backprojected,”
Appellants nevertheless contend they have not been given a fair opportunity
to respond to any statement that Kirchner may or may not make (id.).
Claim Construction
We begin our analysis by broadly but reasonably construing the scope
of the claim terms “backprojecting” and “backprojected” in a manner fully
consistent with the Specification. Claims are given their broadest reasonable
construction “in light of the specification as it would be interpreted by one of
ordinary skill in the art.” In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359,
1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
With respect to the Examiner’s reliance upon the Kirchner patent as
extrinsic evidence in construing the claims, we note that our reviewing court
has determined that extrinsic evidence is unlikely to result in a reliable
interpretation of patent claim scope unless considered in the context of the
intrinsic evidence. Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1319 (Fed. Cir.
2005) (en banc). The court in Phillips reaffirmed its view that the
specification “is always highly relevant to the claim construction analysis.
Usually, it is dispositive; it is the single best guide to the meaning of a
disputed term.” Id. at 1315 (quoting Vitronics Corp. v. Conceptronic, Inc.,
90 F.3d 1576, 1582 (Fed. Cir. 1996)).
When we look to Appellants’ Specification for context, we find
backprojection is discussed on page 1, as follows:
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