Appeal No. 97-1931
Application 08/364,826
Our second observation is that the skilled artisan would
not view Dworkin as limited to the case of a consumer buying a
single item from a supplier. Dworkin would have suggested to the
artisan that any purchaser who can buy from any of a plurality of
suppliers should access a database of price information to
determine the best price. Thus, it would make no difference to
the artisan whether the purchaser was an individual consumer and
the supplier was a retail dealer, or whether the purchaser was a
retail dealer and the supplier was a wholesale distributor. The
artisan would have appreciated that the teachings of Dworkin
would be applicable to any relationship where a buyer can select
from several suppliers. Therefore, all arguments based on a
distinction between the status of a Dworkin user and the users of
the claimed invention are dismissed as not material to the
question of whether such extension of the Dworkin teachings would
have been obvious to the artisan.
Once it has been determined that the teachings of Dworkin
would have suggested to the artisan that the Dworkin system was
applicable to a purchaser and supplier in a commercial retail
relationship, then the teachings of Dworkin must be viewed in
terms of how the functions carried out in Dworkin would be
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