Appeal No. 2004-1484
Application 09/438,396
a portable device (e.g., a smart card) associated with the first
processor to further execute instructions to cause the memory of
the portable device to increment a stored category value by an
amount in relation to the customer purchase information and a
profit margin information of the customer purchase. Moreover, we
again find that the examiner is incorrect in his position that
awarding points for purchase of specific product types or a
single product as in Dorf “can be inherently taken to be awarding
products to profit margin ranges” (answer, page 4). For those
reasons, we will not sustain the examiner’s rejection of claim 7,
or claims 8 through 12 which depend therefrom, under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a).
We reach a different conclusion with regard to the
examiner’s rejection of claims 13 through 18 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a). In this instance, it is our opinion that the examiner
has correctly concluded that the portable device of claim 13 and
the distributed system of claims 14 through 18 (comprising one or
more portable devices similar to those recited in claim 13) would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time
of appellant’s invention based on the collective teachings of
Fernandez, Dorf and Walker ‘573, particularly Fernandez and
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