Appeal No. 1999-1780
Application No. 08/651,630
Claim 48 depends from claim 47 which in turn depends from
claim 46. Claim 47 requires that the “identifying means” of
claim 46 constitutes means “for identifying the item [to be
dropped of] from a database.” Claim 48 further requires that
the database [of claim 47] contains identifications of
items linked to customers with respect to past
transactions, and wherein the item identified by the
item identifying means is from the database.
In rejecting claim 48 as being unpatentable over Lohrey in
view of Rivalto, the examiner found (answer, page 4) that Lohrey
shows all the features of appellants’ claimed invention except
the database of customer histories. The examiner also
implicitly found that Rivalto discloses a database of customers’
past purchasing history and the use thereof to improve strategic
product promotional plans. Based on these teachings, the
examiner determined that it would have been obvious to provide
the device of Lohrey with means to store customer histories for
advertising and promotional purposes.
Our difficulty with this rejection is that it does not take
into account that the cumulative effect of claims 46-48 is that
“the item identified” by the item identifying means of claim 48
that is from the database of past customer transactions and
12
Page: Previous 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007