anyway....each patent has novelty ....774 being an embodiment to the others, having yet novelty of its own.

108 is now hooked into 774 with an amendement

And from the 108 patent:

"The present invention hereinafter incorporates by reference the materials disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,774 for a HAND HELD RECORD AND PLAYBACK DEVICE WITH FLASH MEMORY by Norris et al. This patent provides a detailed example of the benefits of flash memory in a portable recorder. Most importantly, the parent application provides an operating system which is optimized for use in the handheld record and playback device mentioned above.

The motivation for the improvements in the hardware and the software elements of the present invention originated in a desire of the inventors to substantially improve the quality of audio recording and playback in handheld record and playback devices. It is unprecedented to expect high quality recording and playback capabilities on such a reduced scale."

doni