Appeal No. 2005-1644
Application 09/400,583
space with product placement within the retail space" can be done
by data mining.
Obviousness
Claim 53 is the apparatus counterpart of method claim 39,
where "means for" has been placed before each of the steps in
claim 39. Claim 39 is analyzed as representative.
(1) Generating data relationships
The examiner does not explicitly identify the differences
between Hughes and the subject matter of claim 39. The examiner
first finds that "Toung teaches generating customer data by
associating customers with information related to each customer
using data mining and associating the information with spatial
relationships" (FR2) and concludes that it would have been
obvious to use the data mining of Toung in the system of Hughes
"since the data mining of Toung would have provided the ability
to sort patterns by customer information" (FR2-3). In the
answer, the examiner also notes that the Data Game discloses
profiling based on individual customers (EA6-7) and concludes
that "it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in
the art at the time the invention was made to add Toung and The
Data Game's group and individual customer data mining information
to Hughes['s] information on customer path, product placement,
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