Appeal No. 2006-1523
Application No. 09/793,687
We are not persuaded by appellant’s arguments. Burchetta teaches a system
where parties to a dispute enter their offers to settle the dispute, the offers are not
disclosed to the other party. See column 1, lines 55 through 67. The offers from each
party are compared to each other using pre-established conditions. See column 2, lines
18 through 40. The users can enter three offers, see column 4, lines 48 through 51. After
each round the parties are notified of the result of the comparison. See column 9, lines 49
through 52. We consider the notification of the user that their offer was not accepted to
be an indication of contra-party current position (an indication an offer is not accepted
along with the knowledge of the amount of the refused offer, provides information
concerning the contra-parties position). Further, as stated supra, the system also provides
information related to prior settlements available to the users, i.e. historical information.
Thus, we find that Burchetta teaches “at least two of historical information, advisory
information and contra-party current position information.”
For the forgoing reasons, appellant has not persuaded us of error in the
examiner’s rejection of claim 1. Accordingly, we sustain the examiner’s rejection of
claim 1 and the claims appellant grouped with claim 1, claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 9 and 14 through
19.
Rejection of claim 21
On pages 18 and 19 of the brief, appellant presents a separate argument directed
to the rejection of claim 21. Appellant argues on page 18 of the brief:
Burchetta's system does not generate a complaint remedy offer as required
by claim 21. Instead, under pre-established condition, Burchetta's system
computes a settlement amount that is not one of the numbers entered by the users
(column 4, lines 54-67). The parties cannot disagree with Burchetta's computed
settlement amount, so it is not an offer.
Further, appellant argues that Sloo does not teach this limitation.
We are not persuaded by appellant’s argument. We note that Burchetta compares
each party’s offer with the counter party’s offer of the same number, i.e. each party’s first
offer is compared, if there is no match, each party’s second offer is compared. See
Column 4, lines 48 through 52. The parties can enter all of the offers at once or over
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