Appeal No. 2005-1722
Application 10/420,901
with the examiner that it was well known in the art at the time
of filing to provide "award points" for purchases and redemption
of such award points, such as awarding frequent flyer mileage
points based on mileage flown and redeeming the mileage points
for flights or upgrades. Indeed, this is admitted in appellant's
description of the related art (spec. at 1). However, the
invention is directed to issuing the awards based on an on-line
purchase and presenting information about redemption on-line,
which is not taught by this finding of "well known" prior art.
Documentary evidence rather than mere reasoning is required since
the on-line limitations are at the very point of novelty. For
example, the examiner might have shown purchase of airline
tickets on-line to generate award points and redemption of award
points on-line, if a reference could be found, since although it
is stated that frequent flyer programs have the disadvantage of a
limited list of awards, the claims cover any type of awards.
It appears that the examiner has read too much into
Cameron's disclosure of looking up promotions by club at
column 20, lines 19-24. Cameron describes a telemarketing
example where the user, who is not the customer, can look up
promotions identified by "company, source, offer number or club"
(col. 20, line 24). Apparently Cameron refers to a club in which
members are offered promotions of the type described at
column 20, lines 8-12. Cameron does not teach or imply that the
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