Appeal No. 2002-1865
Application 09/452,678
independent claims 1 and 28 respectively define the first
embodiment with corresponding subject matter. The same is true
of independent claims 20 and 47 and their respective dependent
claims. All this has been identified by the examiner at the top
of page 3 of the answer.1
Appellants' initial argument in the paragraph bridging
pages 7 and 8 of the principal brief on appeal that there are
"different sponsors" recited in each claim on appeal is
misplaced. There is no such corresponding limitation in each of
the corresponding independent claims 1, 20, 28 and 47. The mere
recitation of a first sponsor and a second sponsor does not
require that the sponsors be different. According to the bottom
of specification page 6 in the context of defining what the term
"sponsor" encompasses, appellants go on to state at lines 17 and
18 that "[e]ach item in the combination of the several items may
be manufactured, marketed or promoted by different entities"
(emphasis added). Therefore, in the context of the claimed and
disclosed invention, there is clearly no requirement that the
1 From our study of the claims on appeal, it appears that
claim 54, rather than depending from claim 34, should probably
depend from claim 53 to correspond to dependent claims 26 and 27.
3
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