Appeal No. 2005-2642
Reexamination Control No. 90/005,841
In the absence of any indication to the contrary by the examiner, we assume the
rejected claims are entitled to the benefit under 35 U.S.C. § 120 of the August 27, 1985,
filing date of Application 06/770,493, the earliest of the chain of “continuation”
applications that led up to the application which issued as the patent under
reexamination.
Claim 24 reads:
24. In combination, in an investment system for managing inflation risk:
means for establishing data representative of a deposit account
with an institution, the deposit account having a principal
component representing the cash investment of a depositor
for an account term, and an accrual component comprising a
fixed interest component which is enhanced at a fixed
interest rate times the principal component and a variable
interest component which is enhanced at an index
responsive to the rate of inflation times the principal
component; and
an account management dataprocessor [sic] including means for
paying the deposit account over the term.
Before comparing claim 24 to Mukherjee, we will address the examiner’s reliance
on Musmanno as evidence that “it was notoriously well-known to employ data-
processors to manage plural accounts,” Final Action at 4-5, ¶ 7, and the examiner’s
assertion that it therefore would have been obvious to “automate MUKHERERJEE [sic]
et al. on a data-processor such as MUSAMANNO [sic] et al. in order to facilitate account
management.” Id. at 5, ¶ 7 (underlining omitted). We agree that it would have been
obvious in view of Mukherjee and Musmanno, prior to appellant’s August 27, 1985,
effective filing date, for a bank to offer inflation-indexed deposit and loan accounts and
20
Page: Previous 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007