Appeal No. 2002-1865
Application 09/452,678
benefit to a consumer of purchasing, for example, an airline
ticket with a corresponding stay at a related hotel has been
share-costed to the respective sponsors.
In terms of the teachings and suggestions of Schultz as
well, the discussion identified by the examiner in the top half
of column 8 of this reference suggests that various sponsors may
include retailers as well as the manufacturers of the products to
be sold because of the extensive collection of data both in the
participating retail store 20, the processing done on an
intermediate basis at the program management computer system 4,
as well as the central management firm 3 in the Figures 1 and 2
embodiments of Schultz. There are significant databases
available from which records and data histories may be derived.
Individual consumer histories are taught throughout Schultz as
well as the history of the product purchases generally discussed
in the column 8 location identified by the examiner. Accumulated
purchase histories are known in the art anyway as discussed in
the paragraph bridging specification pages 11 and 12.
The paragraph bridging pages 4 and 5 of the answer is a
location where the examiner states that Schultz does not
explicitly teach applying a benefit to current purchases as
recited in dependent claim 2 and other dependent claims.
11
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