Appeal No. 2003-1291
Application 09/468,698
We will not sustain the examiner’s rejection of
independent claims 68 and 85 for essentially the reasons argued
by appellants in the briefs. The examiner’s interpretation of
the disclosure of Lemon is incorrect. The portion of Lemon
relied on by the examiner suggests that the central host computer
H has complete control over the retail establishment computers.
The disclosure indicates that the host computer H makes the same
coupons available to every one of the retail establishment
computers. As noted by appellants, there is no suggestion within
this disclosure of Lemon that some coupon offers are made
available to some of the retail establishments but not to others
of the retail establishments. The examiner’s finding that it is
old and well known for local store managers to have control over
the coupons available within a given store is unsupported by the
record before us. Although there may be prior art which can
support this finding by the examiner, the present record is not
sufficient.
Even though appellants have made additional arguments in
support of the patentability of these claims, the examiner’s
erroneous finding discussed above is sufficient to defeat the
rejection. Since we have not sustained the examiner’s rejection
of independent claims 68 and 85, we also do not sustain the
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