Appeal No. 2006-1050
Application No. 09/852,831
meet the bid. See column 6, line 62 through column 7, line 18, and column 13,
line 53 though column 14, and line 22.
Claim 1 recites “determining that none of said price bids is equal to or
greater than said predetermined reserve price during said auction period;
determining that an extension of said auction period was authorized by a seller of
said item if none of said bid price bids was equal to or greater than said
predetermined reserve price; and automatically extending said auction period if
said extension of said auction period was authorized.” Independent claims 14
and 26 contain similar limitations. Appellants’ specification on pages 5 and 6,
define the reserve price as “a price below which the seller has no obligation to
sell the item being auctioned.” We concur with the examiner that Alaia’s bid
limitations meet the claimed reserve price and that overtime meets the claimed
extension of the auction period. However, we do not find that Alaia teaches or
suggests that not receiving a bid that is equal to or greater then the reserve price
triggers overtime. While Alaia states that overtime is used is if there is any
indication that further bidding is advantageous to the buyer in a downward
bidding auction or seller in an upward bidding auction, we find no teaching that
the overtime is triggered by comparison of the bids to a seller defined criteria,
such as the reserve price. In Alaia the bids are compared to each other.
Further, while Alaia does teach bid limitations which we consider to be an analog
to the reserve price, Alaia teaches that bids, which do not meet the limitations,
are rejected. See column 20 lines 59, 60. Thus, we find no teaching or
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