Appeal No. 2003-1051
Application No. 09/247,134
685, 687 (Fed. Cir. 1986); In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468, 1472,
223 USPQ 785, 788 (Fed. Cir. 1984); and In re Rinehart, 531 F.2d
1048, 1051, 189 USPQ 143, 146-147 (CCPA 1976).
The examiner applies the references in different
combinations. First, with regard to claims 1-6, 8-22 and 26, the
examiner employs Kolling for a teaching of storing electronic
bills in a database, determining if a template exists for the
bill and, if it does not, creating a template and generating a
bill statement. The examiner recognized that Kolling is
concerned only with electronic mail/bills and discloses nothing
about receiving paper mail/bills and then sorting the paper. The
examiner turned to Manduley for a teaching of receiving paper
mail and electronic mail, sorting the paper mail and generating
electronic mail. Since Manduley discloses an integration of
electronic mail and paper mail, the examiner concludes that it
would have been obvious “to combine Kolling’s electronic bill
processing and Manduley’s integration of paper and electronic
mail handling, in order to include both the paper and electronic
mail recipient as taught by Manduley’s...” (answer-page 4).
The examiner then turns to Lech to provide a teaching of
scanning a paper bill to enter specific data contained in the
paper bill into a database and, if a template does not exist and
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