Appeal No. 2003-2131
Application 09/309,834
indicated above, the microprocessor 16 at each of McCarthy’s
merchant locations 14 calculates the credit values or rebates and
sends this information to the central system. To cure McCarthy’s
shortcoming in this regard, the examiner looks to Kanter.
Kanter discloses a consumer credit/rebate accumulation and
accessing system having much in common with the McCarthy system
including sponsoring company point-of-sale locations 14, 16 and a
central system 12. Kanter teaches that the credit/rebate
associated with a particular retail transaction can be determined
either at a sponsoring company point-of-sale location (see, for
example, column 18, lines 7 through 15; and column 19, lines 1
through 9) or at the central system (see, for example, column 23,
line 44 et seq.).
In proposing to combine McCarthy and Kanter, the examiner
concludes that it would have been obvious “to combine the
centralized cash value accumulation system for multiple merchants
taught by McCarthy and . . . the Kanter system of calculation at
the central location to offer to merchants an alternative and
more flexible (i.e. providing choices for the merchants) rebate
administration system” (answer, pages 10 and 11).
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007