Sink,

I am way behind you and Doni when it comes to what is actually going on here, but from a layman's point of view here's my thoughts. This technology obviously was brand new and those that wrote the patents tried to make them as broad as possible with the knowlege they had at that time. The patent examiners were also looking at something new and different and were possibly not exactly sure what they were looking at. Those examining these patents now have the benefit of hindsight and all of the advancements that have happened since the mid 1990's to try of figure out what the patent writers and examiners were trying to do. It seems to me that this thing should come back to the plain and ordinary use of the words as were known at the time of the granting of the patent. Am I in the right ball park? Thanks for all of your contributions even if I do not understand some of them because the technical stuff is way over my head.