Appeal No. 2001-1517
Application No. 09/132,285
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
appellant's specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
Appellant argues that the examiner has not set forth a prima facie case of
obviousness and specifically, that the examiner has not provided any objective teaching
in the prior art for combining these references. (See brief at pages 6-7.) We agree with
appellant. The examiner maintains at pages 4-7 of the first office action that Kavanagh
does not teach or suggest a number facets of steps of the claimed invention, but that it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified the system
of Kavanagh to be used for chiropractic care, using a series of appointments, issuing a
life insurance policy and automatic insurance payments.
While we agree with the examiner that the system of Kavanagh may be extended
to chiropractic care and for a series of appointments, we do not find any teaching or
suggestion by Bank Ad to use a life insurance policy and a series of payments for the
life insurance policy over a span of time/appointments. From our review of Kavanagh,
we find only the one statement in the abstract concerning the implementing of rewards
and at page 756 for eligibility to participate in lotteries.2
2 While the lotteries statement is referenced with an endnote citation, the examiner has
not relied upon this teaching cited in the endnote.
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