Appeal No. 2004-1267
Application No. 08/873,974
decision. Thereat, we indicated that the background section of
Sloane disclosed that it was known for consumers to request
coupons over the internet (see column 2, lines 18-21). Further,
we noted, at page 7 of the decision, that even in Sloane’s actual
invention, a consumer first locates and scans a related product
required for a promotion (see column 8, lines 45-49).
Accordingly, it is clear that any promotion, or discount, issued
is “in response to a consumer request...,” as claimed.
Thus, it is clear that, contrary to appellants’ assertions,
we did not ignore the “in response to a consumer request...”
limitation of the claims.
Appellants further argue that we overlooked the brief filed
July 10, 2001 and the reasoning therein relative to the
inapplicability of the Narasimhan reference. We have reviewed
the second supplemental brief, filed July 10, 2001, but find
nothing therein to cause us to modify our decision. In that
document, appellants simply point out that “there is no evidence
supporting the examiner’s rationale that transmitting a
geographically limited list of retailers honoring incentives in
response to a query is a more efficient way of obtaining desired
information;” and that the examiner’s conclusion of obviousness
in combining the teachings of Narasimhan and Sloane “is vague”
and “unsupported” by any evidence.
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