Appeal No. 2001-0280
Application No. 08/890,398
applies the forwarded portion of the payment to an outstanding
loan amount owed by the merchant to reduce the outstanding loan
amount.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as
follows:
1. A method for automated loan repayment,
comprising:
at a merchant, accepting a customer identifier as
payment from the customer and electronically forwarding
information related to the payment to a computerized
merchant processor;
at the computerized merchant processor, acquiring
the information related to the payment from the
merchant, authorizing and settling the payment, and
forwarding at least a portion of the payment to a
computerized loan repayment receiver as repayment of at
least a portion of an outstanding loan amount owed by
the merchant; and
at the computerized loan repayment receiver,
receiving the portion of the payment forwarded by the
computerized merchant processor and applying that
portion to the outstanding loan amount owed by the
merchant to reduce that outstanding loan amount.
The Examiner relies on the following prior art:
Cohen et al. (Cohen) 4,750,119 Jun. 07, 1988
Hilt et al. (Hilt) 5,465,206 Nov. 07, 1995
Claims 1-19 stand finally rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
As evidence of obviousness, the Examiner offers Cohen alone with
respect to claims 1-6, 8-15, and 17-19, and adds Hilt to Cohen
with respect to claims 7 and 16.
2
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