Appeal No. 97-4150
Application No. 08/186,820
system. The examiner indicates (Answer, page 8) that “[t]he
reference differs from the claims in that the reference prevents
all 10-XXX or 950-1XXX while the claims prevent 10-XXX or
950-1XXX calls if it is determined that the call is an
international call.” It is the examiner’s belief (Answer,
page 8) that “[s]ince interstate calls (e.g., long distance
calls) cannot be prevented according to the FCC Regulations, then
the Bimonte system can only prevent intrastate (e.g., local) and
international 10-XXX or 950-1XXX calls.” The examiner concludes
(Answer, pages 8 and 9) that “[s]ince international calls are
relatively expensive and it is known that fraudulent
international calls cost the industry millions of dollars every
year, cause fraud-related crimes and allow ‘bad guys’ to
monopolize pay phones, it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art to use Bimonte for preventing
international 10-XXX or 950-1XXX calls.” Appellant’s response
(Brief, pages 12 and 13) to the rejection is that:
Nothing in Bimonte performs the act or function of
preventing or restricting the dialing of international
calls based upon the third dialing signals being
determined to be international dialing signals. As
concerns the dialing of 10XXX codes referred to in
Bimonte, Appellant’s claimed invention, as
distinguished from Bimonte, does not restrict dialing
based on the use of predetermined 10XXX codes. To put
the matter in simple terms, Appellant’s claimed
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