Appeal No. 2004-0403
Application 09/100,684
implies that the offer is to pay part of the credit card bill.
This limitation has two parts: (1) the offer is provided with the
billing statement; and (2) the offer is to pay at least a portion
of the amount due on the billing statement if the individual
becomes a customer of the second entity.
The examiner responds (answer, p. 14):
The Examiner notes that the main references used to reject
the claims were the McNatt and Linnen references which
clearly show AT&T sending their offer with the user's phone
bill; however the payment is given to the user, not directly
to the first party. The references the Appellant cites
("Wall Street Access" and "Crosskey") in the above argument
were used to show that it is [sic, was] well known for a
second party to pay a portion of the user's bill owed to a
first party directly to the first party. Thus, in
combination, the references show the user receiving a
billing statement from a first party with an offer (from
AT&T) to pay the user for becoming a customer of the second
party (AT&T), and that payment which is at least a portion
of an amount due to the first party is paid directly to the
first party (Crosskey).
Appellants argue that it is clearly untrue that McNatt and
Linnen show AT&T sending their offer with the user's phone bill
and there is no indication that the entities sending the checks
even send bills to the recipients, whether or not separate from
the checks (reply brief, p. 4). It is also argued that the
examiner's new interpretation of McNatt and Linnen is
inconsistent with statements in the examiner's answer (reply
brief, pp. 4-5).
We agree with appellants that McNatt and Linnen do not show
AT&T sending their offer with the user's phone bill, as stated by
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