Appeal No. 2004-0094
Application No. 09/181,658
automatically rendering the combined bill to the customer;
wherein at least one of the plurality of accounts is a recurring bill
account and wherein the customer continues to purchase products or
services from at least one of the billers after the service provider acquires
ownership of the receivables associated with the account data received.
References
The references relied upon by the examiner are:
Smorodinsky 6,049,786 April 11, 2000
(filed July 22, 1997)
Saville “Convergent Billing & Customer Care”, A Telecommunications Industry
White Paper, Spring 1997, pp. 1-10.
Rejections at Issue
Claims 1, 4, 9 through 16, 19 through 22, 32 through 35, 38 through 41 and 501
through 57 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Saville in view
of Official Notice. Claims 5, 6, 172, 18, 23 through 31, 36, 37, 41 through 49 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Saville in view of Official Notice
and Smorodinsky. Rather than repeat the arguments of appellants or the examiner we
1 It is noted that the statement of the rejection does not identify that claim 50 is included in the rejection
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Saville in view of Official Notice. However, the explanation
of the rejection includes claim 50 and appellants in their arguments address claim 50 as included in the
rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Saville in view of Official Notice. Accordingly, we
will treat claim 50 as being included in this rejection. See Ex Parte Emm 118 USPQ 180, 181
(BdPatApp&Int, 1958).
2 It is noted that the statement of the rejection does not identify that claim 17 is included in the rejection
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Saville in view of Official Notice and Smorodinsky.
However, for the same reasons provided supra with respect to claim 50, we will treat claim 17 as included
in the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Saville in view of Official Notice and
Smorodinsky.
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