Appeal No. 2003-1291
Application 09/468,698
Lemon teaches coupon limits, there is no matching of coupons with
retail establishments in a chain [brief, page 3].
In the original rejection, the examiner asserted that
Lemon teaches that the operator at the local level can prescribe
the coupons for his store, and the examiner simply asserted that
it was old and well known for local store managers to have a
saying on the particular coupons to be available to the stores
that he manages [answer, pages 3-4]. In response to appellants’
argument noted above, the examiner responds that Lemon teaches a
system wherein the operator (i.e. the retail establishment
manager) is able to disable and prescribe the coupons that he
wants to be generated for the particular establishment or store
(terminals T) [answer, page 12].
Appellants respond that there is no disclosure in Lemon
to suggest that the retail establishment manager has any control
over any part of the system. Appellants assert that the only
party having control over the system in Lemon is the operator of
the host central computer H. Appellants note that every coupon
in Lemon is available to every customer who activates a terminal
T at any of the retail establishments [reply brief, pages 1-2].
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