Ex Parte MUNSIL et al - Page 3




              Appeal No. 2003-0957                                                                 Page 3                
              Application No. 09/074,074                                                                                 


                     A further understanding of the invention can be achieved by reading the following                   
              claim.                                                                                                     
                     19. A computer-readable media having instructions for use in                                        
                     automatically generating a customer billing statement for a plurality of                            
                     customers; the instructions performing steps comprising:                                            
                            creating a customer billing statement template having a message                              
                     area;                                                                                               
                            storing in a database a plurality of billing messages each having an                         
                     assigned priority;                                                                                  
                            defining criteria for determining which of the billing messages are to                       
                     be included in a customer billing statement; and                                                    
                            generating the customer billing statement for each of the plurality of                       
                     customers by repeating the steps of:                                                                
                                   selecting billing messages from the database based on the                             
                            criteria and information specific to the customer being billed;                              
                                   arranging the selected billing messages based on their                                
                            priority; and                                                                                
                                   using only those selected billing messages that have the                              
                     highest priority and that can fit within the message area when generating                           
                     each customer billing statement.                                                                    


                     Claims 18-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over U.S.                           
              Patent No. 5,121,945 ("Thomson") and U.S. Patent No. 5,177,687 ("Baggarly").                               












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