Appeal No. 2004-1980
Application No. 10/153,200
(emphasis original) (brief, page 14; reply brief, page 7).
Appellants further allege the absence of other claimed features
in Shkedy by relying on these features’ corresponding
descriptions in the specification (brief, pages 10 & 11).
In response, the Examiner points out that both the buyer and
the seller in Shkedy (col. 12, lines 42-55) are connected to a
central controller through computers that use commercial
communications software as transfer controllers (answer, page 5).
The Examiner further asserts that, similar to the claims, the
buyer and the seller of Shkedy transfer information to one
another through the central controller in response to inquiries
by the buyer or the seller (answer, page 6).
After a review of the prior art, we agree with the Examiner
that the claimed receiving a request and transferring a response
reads on the communications between the sellers and the buyers
through a central controller in Shkedy. The distinction made by
Appellants between the central controller of Shkedy and the
claimed main controller is inconsistent with the teachings of the
reference and the recited features of claim 31. As shown in
Figure 1, Shkedy explicitly discloses that a plurality of buyers
and a plurality of sellers communicate transactions for goods and
services through a central controller 200 (col. 4, lines 62-65).
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007