Appeal No. 2003-2131
Application 09/309,834
verified against a code stored on the card. A credit
value for that transaction is then determined based
upon the credit rate stored in memory 24 as selected by
that merchant and the dollar amount of the particular
transaction involved. Subsequently, the consumer data,
merchant data and credit value are transmitted to the
central system whereat the cash value in the consumer
account having the appropriate account or Social
Security number and birthdate segments is incremented
by the amount of the credit value. Similarly, at the
central system, the bill value in the merchant account
having the appropriate merchant code number segment is
also incremented by the amount of the credit value.
Periodically, such as monthly, bills are sent to the
merchants for at least the bill value amount which is
then reset to zero. Similarly, at selected intervals
all consumers having one or more selected common
birthdates are provided access to funds in the amount
of the cash value shown in the consumer accounts
associated with those individuals and the cash value
then rest to zero. Such access may be by authorized
access to an access account or by checks issued
directly to that consumer, for example [column 5, lines
26 through 53].
The examiner concedes (see pages 10, 13 and 17 in the
answer) that McCarthy does not respond to the limitations in
independent claims 1 and 15 requiring the controlling authority,
which corresponds to McCarthy’s central system 12, to calculate
an amount of a rebate that is to be credited to the consumer, or
to the similar limitation in independent claim 12 requiring the
claimed computer program to execute such a calculation.2 As
2 The examiner views McCarthy’s central system 12 as
generally embodying a computer program of the sort recited in
claim 12.
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007