Appeal 2007-2312
Application 09/681,815
Appellant argues “Kanter and DeWolf each fail to teach, disclose, or suggest
a customer identification badge that expires after a predetermined time interval if
the customer does not verify that he or she continues to possess the automobile, as
each of independent claims 1 and 13 recite.” (Rvsd Argument., 2) We disagree.
We begin by noting that Appellant does not argue that the combination of
Kanter and DeWolf made under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is improper, but rather that
each reference fails to teach the claimed feature of the customer identification
badge expiring as forth, supra. We thus address the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection in
the context of whether this limitation is found in one of Kanter and DeWolf.
We find that DeWolf does disclose a customer badge that expires after a
predetermined time interval if the customer does not verify that he or she continues
to possess the automobile as required by the claims. First, in DeWolf, a smart card
can be used to transfer a record of an asset owned by a holder of the card (FF 3),
and thus the smart card is a customer identification badge. Appellant does not
challenge this point. (Rvsd Argument., 3)
Second, we find that in DeWolf, the registry service associated with the
smart card may be set to expire after a predetermined period lapses (FF 6). In
addition, in DeWolf, the smart card, via the registry system with which it is
associated, does effectively expire if the customer does not verify that he or she
continues to possess the automobile as required by the claims. This is because: (1)
the smart card in DeWolf is tied to a predetermined time interval (FF 6), and (2)
the access privileges in the smart card are also tied to ownership (FF 8). Thus, if
the user has access to the system, then he/she must be the present owner of the
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