Appeal No. 2006-1817 Page 2
Application No. 09/851,514
BACKGROUND
The appellants’ invention relates to a computer-implemented method and
system to define a campaign plan having differential allocations of promotions
among prospective customers of a business enterprise. Independent claim 1 is
representative of the subject matter on appeal. It reads:
1. A computer implemented method of determining differential promotion
allocation among prospective customers comprising the steps of:
entering, into a computer, management information that is specific to
business management objectives and constraints, including entering budget
information; and
defining, with the computer, a campaign plan for allocating presentations
of a plurality of said promotions among said customers, including using
automated processing to form said campaign plan on the basis of customer
segments and said management information, said customer segments being
based upon customer commonalities with respect to at least one customer
attribute, said campaign plan being defined to automatically detecting [sic]
contradictions between said constraints and other aspects of said entered
management information, automatically identifying resolutions to said
contradictions, and implementing said resolutions in said campaign plan.
The examiner relies upon the following as evidence of unpatentability:
Harhen 5,406,477 Apr. 11, 1995
Gerace 5,848,396 Dec. 08, 1998
Deaton et al. (Deaton) 5,687,322 Nov. 11, 1997
The appellants seek our review of the examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2,
and 4-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gerace in view of
Harhen in view of Deaton.
Rather than reiterate in detail the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the
examiner and the appellants regarding this appeal, we make reference to the
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