The District Court interpreted independent Claims 1, 29 and 37 to exclude real-time delivery of the desired information even though the crucial claim limitation language on this point (the word “stored”) appears only in Claim 37 and not in Claims 1 and 29.
V. THE SPECIFICATION SPECIFICALLY REFERS TO AN EMBODIMENT INVOLVING REAL-TIME DELIVERY OF INFORMATION
The specification specifically refers to an embodiment involving real-time delivery of information:
In one embodiment and in response to receiving a request reproduction code, the information control machine 12 can be programmed to encode the encoded information and communicate the encoded information over the communication link 18 for reception and reproduction by the information manufacturing machine 14 in a manner like that described before with respect to the catalog reproduce codes and the catalog transmit codes. In this manner, the information manufacturing machines 14 would not have any encoded information stored therein and could only function to reproduce information in material objects in response to receiving an authorization code which would include the encoded information. However, considering the communication link 18 to be a telephone line or an airway transmission type of link, the real time required to transmit the actual encoded information would not render this last mentioned embodiment economical from a time or expense viewpoint, except for transmitting encoded information to update the encoded information in the information manufacturing machines 14. For this reason, the preferred embodiment has been described as transmitting only programs over the communication link 18 in response to receiving request reproduction codes, which transmission time would be relatively small. [A00088 at col. 24 lns. 33-58 (emphasis added)].
Thus, although real-time delivery of information is not a preferred embodiment (owing to the more limited bandwith and communication speed possible at the time of the filing of the application) the specification clearly illustrates an embodiment involving such real-time delivery.
VI. THE TERM “MATERIAL OBJECT” HAS A PLAIN MEANING IN THE CLAIMS AND IS BROADLY DEFINED IN THE SPECIFICATION
As used in Claims 1 and 29 (quoted above), for example, the term “material object” has a clear meaning: it is a tangible medium or device capable of containing information and from which the information can be perceived or retrieved.
Moreover, the specification defines “material object” in broad terms:
a medium or device in which information can be embodied or fixed and from which the information embodied therein can be perceived, reproduced, used or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of another machine or device.” [A00078 at col. 4 lns. 36-41].
