5
Appeal No. 2005-0748
Application No. 09/190,727
shopping feature disclosed at page 8, line 20 through page 9, line 3, page 20, line 27
through page 21, line 26 and Figure 11.
Regarding the examiner’s rejection of claim 22, we first note that this claim is
directed to a method of transmitting purchase data in a database to a merchant, where
the purchase data concerns first and second consumers’ orders that have been
combined and anonymized. Claim 22 recites the steps of combining first and second
consumer’s purchase data and “anonymizing the purchase data from the first and
second consumer’s orders into anonymous data”, and indicates that the combining and
anonymizing steps “are performed independently of any input from the first or second
consumer.” The examiner has recognized that Goldhaber does not disclose the step of
combining the purchase data, for which the examiner has turned to O’Neil. The
examiner also points to various portions of Col. 6, lines 24-61 of Goldhaber as meeting
the limitations with respect to anonymizing purchase data. However, a reading of the
aforementioned portion of the Goldhaber reference indicates the creation of consumer
demographic profiles that protect the identity of the consumers. In other words,
Goldhaber addresses anonymizing the contact information or customer identity
associated with a consumer’s demographic or interest profile so that their name and
address can not be readily accessed by advertisers. In contrast, claim 22 expressly
requires anonymizing purchase data from first and second consumers’ orders, rather
than contact information or customer identity associated with a consumer’s demographic
or interest profile.
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