Appeal No. 2005-0986
Application No. 09/727,904
information is concealed from the credit card company in
Nishioka, and, normally, one might not equate the claimed
“merchant” with the credit card company of Nishioka because the
claims also require that access to the information items
“purchasable from a merchant” is controlled. Clearly, the credit
card company in Nishioka is not an entity from which information
items may be purchased.
However, in view of appellants’ admission, at page 4 of the
instant specification, that a payment server, which is associated
with a merchant in the preferred embodiment, but may also be a
third party entity separate from the merchant, we find that the
teaching, by Nishioka, of keeping information on the items
purchased secret from the credit card company clearly would have
suggested the claimed subject matter whereby a merchant is unable
to identify the given information item purchased by the user.
Keeping information from one entity would clearly have suggested
the ability and desire to keep said information from any other
entity. Moreover, a payment server, such as a credit card
company, may very well be associated with a merchant, as
indicated, for example, by appellants at page 4 of the
specification. Where, for example, a credit card company sells
items, the “merchant” and the credit card company are one and the
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