Appeal 2007-1867
Application 09/864,113
1 08. If a user wants to know a little something about a person before
2 chatting, open the other user's Details Card with a right-click on any little
3 figure, and select Show Details from the popup menu. The Details Card
4 opens to reveal the user's profile ... everything one wants to know, and then
5 some! If the first user likes what it sees, that user clicks on the Talk button
6 and says Hi in the message window. (Odigo Web Pages 16: ¶ 1-3)
7
8 PRINCIPLES OF LAW
9 Claim Construction
10 During examination of a patent application, pending claims are given
11 their broadest reasonable construction consistent with the specification. In
12 re Prater , 415 F.2d 1393, 1404-05, 162 USPQ 541, 550-551 (CCPA 1969);
13 In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364, 70 USPQ2d 1827,
14 1834 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
15 Although a patent applicant is entitled to be his or her own lexicographer of
16 patent claim terms, in ex parte prosecution it must be within limits. In re Corr,
17 347 F.2d 578, 580, 146 USPQ 69, 70 (CCPA 1965). The applicant must do so by
18 placing such definitions in the Specification with sufficient clarity to provide a
19 person of ordinary skill in the art with clear and precise notice of the meaning that
20 is to be construed. See also In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480, 31 USPQ 2d 1671,
21 1674 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (although an inventor is free to define the specific terms
22 used to describe the invention, this must be done with reasonable clarity,
23 deliberateness, and precision; where an inventor chooses to give terms uncommon
24 meanings, the inventor must set out any uncommon definition in some manner
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Last modified: September 9, 2013