Opinion ID: 221848
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Original Prosecution

Text: The ‘275 Patent application was filed on November 13, 1985. In an Office Action dated October 2, 1986, the PTO rejected Claims 1-23 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, ¶ 2, “as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which applicant regards as the invention.” Appendix (“A”) 1272. With respect to Claim 10, which issued as Claim 9, the PTO found that it was unpatentable over two prior art references: Peterson and Gehalo. Specifically, the PTO noted that: The difference between Peterson and the claimed invention concerns prepayment and credit moni- toring. Although Peterson mentions postpay telephone systems in his prior art discussion, his invention does not specifically mention prepay- ment and credit monitoring. It would therefore be obvious to supply the Peterson reference with the credit monitoring and prepayment features dis- closed in Gehalo since Gehalo is also a credit tele- 9 AEROTEL LTD v. TELCO GROUP phone which has the feature of making calls with- out coins or credit cards. A1273. In response, Aerotel filed an Amendment to the claim to add the limitation: “means for monitoring the credit of the calling party during a call.” In the “Remarks” portion of the Amendment, Aerotel stated that: [T]he present invention is concerned with issuing a valid special code to a calling party when a pre- payment amount is deposited. The prepayment amount is stored in a memory in a special ex- change that is called by the calling party when he wishes to make a telephone call to a called party. The calling party inputs his special code and the number of the called party. Before the calling party is connected to the called party, the special code inputted by the calling party is validated in the sense that the system determines whether the special code inputted by the calling party is a valid special code. If this is the case, then the calling party is connected to the called party only if the current initial prepayment amount stored in the memory exceeds the mini- mum cost of a call to the inputted number. Be- cause the calling station and the called station are known, the minimum cost of a call can be com- puted beforehand. Thus, prior to making a con- nection, the system can determine whether the amount of the prepayment [] is sufficient to cover the minimum cost of the call. A761-62. In response to the examiner’s rejection, Aerotel explained that the Peterson prior art reference claims “a AEROTEL LTD v. TELCO GROUP 10 system for providing coin-free service for certain unrestricted numbers from pay stations connected to coin trucks.” A763. Aerotel distinguished Peterson on grounds that it “neither shows, describes, nor suggests the use of prepayments to obtain a special code. No special central exchange is provided with equipment to monitor the remaining prepayment during a call made using the special code.” Id. Aerotel next distinguished the Gehalo prior art reference on grounds that it “discloses a special pay station equipped with a reader for reading credit cards. The socalled ‘credit information’ is read and stored in an account number against which calls are credited.” Id. Aerotel argued that Gehalo failed to teach use of a special exchange and did not involve “monitoring of any prepayment since no prepayment is involved in this reference.” A764. Accordingly, Aerotel argued that Claim 10 should not have been rejected as anticipated by Gehalo because Gehalo did not “provide any way in which to monitor credit information that includes the amount remaining of a prepayment.” A764-65.