Appeal No. 2001-1862
Application No. 09/102,044
and that the Official Notices are considered to consist of merely subjective statements
by the examiner. We disagree with appellants’ position and further find that the Reply
Brief is not an appropriate time to controvert Official Notices which have been in the
statement of the rejection for an extended time and when the examiner has no
opportunity to reply to this argument without formally reopening prosecution on the
merits. 37 CFR 1.193(b)(1).
With respect to the individual modifications to the Your Choice prepaid card
system, we generally agree with each of the examiner’s conclusions, but we find that
the examiner lacks factual support or convincing lines of reasoning for the combination
of these facts.
Specifically, some of the examiner’s findings relate to the interpretation of the
claim language, such as what or who an “individual purchaser” would be. The examiner
maintains that the corporation would have been an individual purchaser. (See answer
at page 26.) We agree with the examiner. Appellants argue that Your Choice teaches
away from the selling of cards to individual purchasers. (See brief at page 8.) We
disagree with appellants that Your Choice teaches away given the broad interpretation
of the individual purchaser.
We note that the Office Action, Paper No. 18, mailed Dec. 11, 1999 and the
Final Rejection, Paper No. 23, mailed Apr. 17, 2000, contains essentially the same text
of the rejection of the claims and includes the same statements/findings by the
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