Appeal No. 2004-2085
Application 09/272,542
auctioneer in Harrington to choose a winner by any of the
established auction methods (EA15).
Appellants admit that it was within the skill in the art to
implement a "Dutch flower auction," but state that the examiner
did not provide a cogent line of reasoning as to how or why the
Dutch flower auction mechanism would be used in Harrington's
system or is otherwise relevant (RBr5). It is argued that a
Dutch flower auction is a type of auction where the auctioneer
offers to sell a product in decreasing price increments, the
first buyer to accept a bid being the winner, but this would not
be useful in Harrington's auction system for the purpose of price
yield discovery since it puts the burden on the Issue of the
bonds to determine what the market is (RBr5).
It is not clear how the examiner proposes modifying the
original issuer auctions of Harrington to use a Dutch flower
auction or what the motivation would be. If the examiner
proposes using the auction to sell something other than original
issue instruments, this has not been stated. However, even if
Harrington was a Dutch flower auction, it would not appear to
meet the claim limitations. In a Dutch flower auction the offers
to sell are made by the auctioneer in decreasing price increments
with the first buyer to accept a bid being the winner. Claim 1
recites entering responses with "at least some of the responses
specifying a relative price with a price improvement," which does
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