Appeal No. 2004-1283
Application No. 09/373,141
there is a mention of “discount,” as in whereby the terms of a
pre-negotiated contract specify that the selling company “would
beat any published competitors price and provide an additional 5%
discount to the collective buyer pool...” This appears to us a
far cry from the instant claim language which requires that bids
are received as discount rate bids wherein a successful seller is
based on a bid having the greatest discount rate and, in claim
63, wherein buyers commit to spending a certain amount “and a
requested discount field” and information indicating the
aggregate commitment amounts associated with different requested
discounts is presented to the sellers. The fact that a seller
may offer to beat competitors’ prices and offer an additional 5%
discount to a collective buyer pool does not teach a system
whereby the bids are the presentation of discount rates, with a
commitment to buy at a minimum discount rate.
Thus, the examiner has not shown Shkedy to teach each and
every claimed element/step. There may be a question as to the
obviousness of bidding by discount rate, rather than price of an
aggregate of specified items, but the rejection before us is
based on anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e), not obviousness
under 35 U.S.C. § 103, so we do not address this question.
-6-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007