Appeal No. 2006-1817 Page 3
Application No. 09/851,514
examiner's answer (mailed January 23, 2006) for the examiner's complete
reasoning in support of the rejection and to the appellants’ brief (filed December
26, 2005) and reply brief (filed March 14, 2006) for the appellants’ arguments.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have carefully considered the
appellants’ specification and claims, the applied prior art, and the respective
positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of our
review, we make the determinations that follow.
I. Independent Claim 1
In the rejection of independent claim 1, the examiner determined that Gerace
discloses a computer-implemented method of determining differential promotion
allocation among prospective customers containing all of the elements of claim 1,
except that Gerace does not explicitly disclose target profit levels or target revenue
levels or automatically detecting contradictions between business constraints and
other aspects of the entered management information. (Examiner’s Answer, pp. 4-
7.)
The examiner relies on Deaton for the teaching of target profit levels or
target revenue levels. (Examiner’s Answer, p. 6.) The examiner relies on Harhen
for the teaching of automatically detecting inconsistencies and contradictions
between the business constraints and other aspects of the entered management
information, automatically identifying resolutions to the inconsistencies and
contradictions, and implementing the resolutions in a campaign plan. (Examiner’s
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