Appeal No. 2004-2085
Application 09/272,542
not fit the Dutch flower auction format. It appears that the
examiner has just found a teaching of the first response being
the winner and said that the matching limitation would have been
obvious. Absent a clear line of reasoning, we conclude that the
matching limitation is neither taught nor suggested.
Appellants argue that the examiner misapplies the so-called
"printed matter" doctrine to dismiss the features involving
responses and matching (Br17).
The examiner responds that each limitation in claim 1 has
been addressed and the point about "printed matter" is moot
although the examiner stands by his analysis (EA15-16).
The printed matter doctrine states that patentable weight
will not be given to the content of the printed matter and this
doctrine has no application to claim 1.
Therefore, we conclude that Harrington does not disclose or
suggest the obviousness of "entering an order ... specifying in
the order ... an exposure time," "specifying a relative price
with a price improvement with the relative price being relative
to a generally accepted indicator of a prevailing current market
price for the product," and "matching the order with a first one
of the responses that meets all of the conditions specified by
the order during the exposure time ... with matching of the first
one of the responses with the order terminating the auction" in
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