Appeal 2007-2370
Application 09/373,141
1 Accordingly, we select claim 1 as representative of the group.
2 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2006).
3 Before analyzing the rejection, we must construe the claim limitation of a
4 discount rate. The disclosure provides no lexicographic definition of this claim
5 limitation (FF 01). The phrase “discount rate” has an idiomatic meaning with
6 respect to commercial paper or bank loans (FF 02), neither of which is pertinent to
7 the claimed subject matter. Therefore we construe the phrase as a rate for a
8 discount.
9 The usual and ordinary meaning of a discount is a reduction from the full or
10 standard amount of a price (FF 03). Thus we construe a discount rate to be a rate
11 or measure of a reduction from the full or standard amount of a price.
12 The Examiner found that Shkedy described all of the limitations of claim 1,
13 except for referring to a transaction as an auction. To overcome this deficiency,
14 the Examiner found that the Appellant’s admitted prior art describes transactions
15 such as those in Shkedy as an auction. The Examiner concluded that it would have
16 been obvious to one of ordinary skill to have referred to Shkedy’s transactions as
17 auctions (Answer 3:Bottom ¶ - 7:Last full ¶).
18 The Appellant contends that Shkedy utilizes prices directed to forward
19 purchase orders, whereas Appellant's invention utilizes undiscounted monetary
20 amounts at minimum discount rates directed to categories of items. The Appellant
21 also argues that the Examiner ignored the benefits of these differences (Br.
22 8:Second to bottom ¶).
23 While the Appellant is correct in stating that Shkedy is directed to forward
24 purchase orders (FF 09), the Appellant fails to recognize that its arguments are not
10
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