Appeal No. 2003-2131
Application 09/309,834
accounts linked to the central system also constitute trusts
having the central system and/or the banking institutions as
trustees.
As indicated above, McCarthy’s component 50 is merely a
consumer accounts memory associated with central system
microprocessor 54. As such, it does not amount to a “trust”
under any reasonable meaning of this term. Nonetheless, McCarthy
does suggest that the central system receives credit/rebate funds
from the bills sent to the merchants. Thus, to at least some
extent, the central system and/or the banking institutions
associated therewith do hold or directly control rebate money
intended to be distributed to consumers. This does not
necessarily make “trust accounts” of the money or “trustees” of
the central system or banking institutions in the sense disclosed
and claimed by the appellant. As evidenced by the Black’s Law
Dictionary definitions advanced by the examiner, a person having
ordinary skill in the art would appreciate a trust as having to
meet certain legal requirements. Not all arrangements wherein
property is held by one entity for another meet these
requirements, and hence the examiner’s apparent position that any
such arrangement constitutes a trust is unsound. In the present
case, there is nothing in the disclosure of McCarthy, taken alone
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