Appeal No. 09/536,531
Application 2005-0494
time, special offers, telephone calling card minutes, hotel
nights or frequent-flyer miles, other discounts, or even cash or
stock in the database company" (col. 9, lines 25-29). Ng teaches
using the points for many things and does not restrict how a user
spends his or her points to acquire merchandise. In our opinion,
this would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art
that the generated points in Ng could be spent in any way that
regular currency is spent, including to bid in an auction system
as taught by Godin. Godin simply shows that computer-based
auctions were well known in the art.
Second, appellant argues that Ng and Godin do not teach the
limitation of "generating currency" because the "reward system of
Ng is largely dependent on the actions of others, while the
system of generating currency in the present claims is entirely
dependent on the actions of one person, the reward recipient"
(Br6). That is, "the systems and methods of the present
invention allow the initial person to generate their own currency
by simply providing more information, answering more questions,
evaluating more product information and the like" (Br6).
Appellant does not point out what language of claim 1 is not
met by Ng and we do not find any differences. Ng discloses
generating points, which is a form of currency, in exchange for
information from a user. Appellant's method of generating
currency is not claimed. If the method had been claimed in more
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