Appeal No. 2005-2642
Reexamination Control No. 90/005,841
that has been received in the form of deposits for deposit accounts. Final Action at 9, ¶
15. Tangible examples of such property include the building which houses the bank
and the equipment and furniture contained therein. The rejection of claim 34 is
therefore affirmed.
Claim 35 depends on claim 24 and specifies that the deposit account is “secured
by the property of the institution.” The phrase “property of the institution” is broad
enough to read on any type of property which is used to protect the integrity of the data
representing the deposit accounts and thus includes known building security techniques
and known electronic security techniques for the data processing computers. The
examiner is therefore correct to argue that “this was a well-known method of running a
bank. It would have been obvious . . . to secure the accounts of MUKHERERJEE [sic]
et al. and MUSAMANNO [sic] et al. in order to assure depositors, and thus attract
depositors, and in order to make money on deposits.” Final Action at 9, ¶ 16
(underlining omitted). Appellants’ denial that “it was a [sic] ‘well known’ for a bank to
secure a deposit account with funds on deposit with that institution,” Brief at 15, ¶ h,
was correctly dismissed by the examiner on the ground that the claim does not require
that the securing “property” be in the form of deposited funds. Final Action at 38, ¶ 63.
Appellant also complains (Brief at 15, ¶ h; Reply brief at 7) that the examiner
failed to respond to appellant’s earlier request under 37 CFR § 104(d)(2)12 to make of
12 Section 1.104(d)(2) (2005) reads:
(2) When a rejection in an application is based on facts within the
personal knowledge of an employee of the Office, the data shall be as
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