Appeal No. 2005-1722 Application 10/420,901 Award points The examiner finds that although Cameron does not explicitly teach that the awards are "award points," they must inherently be so because the structure in the reference is substantially identical to that in the claims (FR3) and because "Cameron does teach product-to-product cross selling and a promotional club (col. 20 lines 8 and 24), both of which are facilitated by a system of award points" (FR3). Alternatively, the examiner finds that "because [Cameron] does teach product-to-product cross selling and a promotional club, both of which are facilitated by a system of award points, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art ... to add award points to the system of incentives taught by Cameron" (FR3). Appellant argues that the marketing promotions in Cameron do not include nor suggest award points that are redeemable for awards (Br10). It is argued that there is no support for the examiner's conclusion that it would have been obvious to include award points as a promotion, and the fact that promotions may be driven by order or by customer does not disclose or suggest that the promotions may comprise award points which are redeemable for rewards (Br11). Appellants argue that Cameron's marketing promotions are intended to influence a user to make a particular purchase with which a particular promotion is associated, while - 7 -Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007