Appeal No. 2002-1865
Application 09/452,678
plural purchase of the same item or different items from the
same or plural, different manufacturers or sources.
Moreover, we find persuasive the examiner's reliance upon
the statement at column 5, lines 20-22 which indicates that
"manufacturers of the participating products are invoiced for
their portion of the rewards earned." In contrast to appellants'
urgings in the brief and reply brief, we find this a persuasive
teaching that the different sponsors are debited corresponding
amounts for their respective benefits provided to the common
rewards system according to the requirement at the end of the
independent claims on appeal.
Individual manufacturer apportionment of costs for a given
benefit are also taught at column 9 at least at lines 8-24 of
Schultz. In terms of apportioning cost, Baker suggests that the
benefit provided to the consumer by membership in a common
organization would implicitly require the apportionment of the
costs of the benefit to the various providers since it would
have been obvious to us that the provider of a hotel accom-
modation would have provided a subsidy or benefit to a
corresponding airline according to the example at column 6
of Baker. We read Baker as clearly indicating that the single
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