Appeal No. 2001-1862
Application No. 09/102,044
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
appellants regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the examiner's
answer (Paper No. 30, mailed Jan. 2, 2001) for the examiner's reasoning in support of
the rejections, and to appellants’ brief (Paper No. 28, filed Oct. 17, 2000) and reply brief
(Paper No. 32, filed Feb. 26, 2001) for appellants’ arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
At the outset we note that appellants have grouped the claims into three
groupings. Group One includes claims 53-56, 58, 60, 72-75, 77, 79-82, 84, 86, 98-100,
103, and 104 and is directed to the gift card by itself. We select independent claim 53
as the representative claim. While we address the limitations of independent claim 53,
we do not reach the limitations of the corresponding apparatus claims (e.g., claim 79)
which appellants have drafted in “mean plus function” format. In our original review of
these claims we found great difficultly in determining the corresponding structure, acts
and materials disclosed in the specification for the claimed “means” yet it does not
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