Appeal No. 2006-1187
Application No. 10/056,832
For claim 51, not disclosed is that the offer for the replica is made at the
same time as the sale of the product. In Fernwood this would be the
situation of offering the replica to the home owner at the closing of the
home, which is the point of time when legal documents are signed and the
sale occurs. The examiner feels it is common sense and would be
obvious to one of ordinary skill in art at the time the invention was made to
ask the new home owner at closing if they would like to receive a free gift
of a replica of their newly purchased home or to tell them that one should
be expected in the mail. Also in addition to the above obviousness
statement the examiner considers the timing of the offer for the replica to
be one of sales style because the timing of the offer has no material affect
on the end result of the invention. The offer could be made just before a
person signs the bank loan documents for the sale of the home, or could
be made just after the signing of the papers, it does not matter in the end.
We concur with the examiner. We find that Turkel teaches that the bank
orders and gives recent home buyers replicas of their newly purchased homes.
The passage of Turkel cited by the examiner implies that these replicas would
not be physically transferred to the owner until after the sale of the house (as the
article refers to newly purchased homes). Further, it stands to reason that that
purchaser (home buyer) would be notified of the gift at some time, either, before
the sale, during the sale or after the sale. It is not clear from Turkel when the
bank notified the purchaser of the gift, clearly the purchaser is notified upon
receipt of the gift, which would be after the sale of the property. The examiner
provides a rational and cogent explanation of why it would be obvious to
communicate that a gift will be transferred to the purchaser (home buyer) during
the sale of the property, as all of the parties will be present at the closing (the
time of the sale of the product). Thus, we concur with the examiner’s
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