Appeal No. 2004-0013
Application No. 09/234,889 Page 12
with the examiner (answer, page 5) that this feature is disclosed
by Willmore at page 14, lines 11-26. From our review of the
portion of Willmore relied upon by the examiner we find that the
passage refers to the operation of the alternative loyalty
controller 40 storing the transaction information, and find no
disclosure in this or any portion of Willmore of adding the
transaction data to the smart card at the stand-alone terminal.
Accordingly, we agree with appellants (brief, page 8) that this
claimed feature is not taught by Willmore.
From all of the above, we find that the combined teachings
of the prior art fails to teach all of the limitations of claim
1. Accordingly, we find that the examiner has failed to
establish a prima facie case of obviousness of claim 1. The
rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is therefore
reversed. Independent claim 57 also recites that the identified
transaction is added to the stored loyalty program information at
the stand-alone terminal. Accordingly, the rejection of claims
1, 57, and claims 2-5, 8, 9, 12-14, 19-25, 27, 31-35, 38-40, 43,
48-57, 60, 68 and 72, dependent therefrom, under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) is reversed.
As independent claims 77 and 78 also recite that adding the
transaction data to the smart card at the stand-alone terminal,
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