Appeal No. 2004-1484
Application 09/438,396
Appellant has not specifically challenged the examiner’s
position with regard to claims 13 and 14 through 18 on appeal,
and has not specifically pointed out where or how these
particular claims define a structural and functional
interrelationship between the category values and other claimed
aspects of the invention permitting the category values’
functionality to be realized.
For the above reasons, we will sustained the examiner’s
rejection of claims 13 through 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
As for the examiner’s rejection of claims 19 and 20 on
appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on the combined teachings
of Fernandez and Dorf, we agree with appellant that the examiner
has failed to set forth a prima facie case of obviousness with
regard to the retail checkout stand defined in these claims.
With particular regard to claim 19, we note that the examiner’s
various positions concerning use of profit margin, its purported
status as “nonfunctional descriptive material,” and how such
profit margin information can purportedly be inherently found in
Dorf, are misplaced and unnecessary, since claim 19 does not
mention profit margin, or profit margin ranges or categories. As
13
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