Appeal No. 2005-2744
Application No. 09/849,979
Claim 81 requires that debiting of funds equal to the monetary gift
amount be directed from a deposit account at a financial institution
associated with the requesting donor to a deposit account at a financial
institution associated with the service provider. The claim also requires
that crediting of funds to the deposit account of the designated recipient
be directed from the deposit account associated with the service provider.
However, Appellants do not identify how claim 81 differs from the references
cited by the examiner.
The examiner states on page 11 of the answer:
Official Notice was taken that the broad limitation, wherein the funds are
directed to be credited to the deposit account from the deposit account
associated with the service provider, was old an well known in the art.
Despite its convoluted language, this limitation reads on one bank
customer depositing funds into another bank customer’s account wherein
the customer’s belong to the same bank. As demonstrated by the
references offered by the Examiner [the articles Wijnen, and “Person-To-
anywhere Payments Are Here With Citybanks’ C2it] this step is neither
new or non-obvious when viewed in light of Van Dusen.
We concur with the examiner’s findings. Initially we note, that claim 81
does contain several ambiguities and for the reasons stated infra we now reject
claim 81 under 35 U.S.C. § 112 second paragraph. Further, we note that claim
81 does not contain limitations directed to crediting the recipient’s account from
the service provider’s account. As stated supra, with respect to claim 67, Van
Dusen teaches that the donor can pay with a credit card, and that the credit
transaction necessarily requires debiting a donor’s account and crediting a
merchant’ account. We note that this function of credit cards is discussed briefly
on page 2 of Wijnen (“Business readily establish merchant accounts to process
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