Appeal No. 1998-2191
Application No. 08/284,708
required by instant claim 1. The Ortiz system is designed to estimate what the periodic bill
from the service provider is expected to be, so that the owner of the system will know, to a
reasonable degree, what the service provider’s actual charge will be for a cumulative
billing period. “The owner or user does not have to wait until the call is completed or until
the bill comes in a month later to find out how much the cost of the call was.” Ortiz, column
15, lines 21-24.
Thus, although Ortiz at column 14 discloses display of “current billing period
information,” and additionally calculation and storage of an approximation of actual “current
billing period information,” the information is calculated and maintained at the user’s
location. In this regard we note that Hattori, in the “third embodiment” described at column
7, line 27 through column 8, line 12, discloses calculating and storing both a “call charge”
and an “accumulated call charge.” The “accumulated call charge” is within the ambit of the
claim 1 language of “cumulative current billing period information.” However, as in Ortiz,
the calculation and storage of the information is an approximation of what the provider’s
actual charges will be, and the calculation and storage is performed locally, by the user’s
apparatus.
In light of the examiner’s findings and the references which have been applied in the
rejection, we agree with appellant, as set forth on pages 5 and 6 of the Brief, that an
essential part of instant claim 1 is not disclosed or suggested in the evidence before us.
There is no disclosure or suggestion of downloading and transmitting cumulative current
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