Appeal No. 2006-1817 Page 12
Application No. 09/851,514
planning is a form of strategic planning that is engaged in by business enterprises,
and as such, the Harhen reference is in a related field.
We further find that both Gerace and Deaton are directed to solving the same
problem as the claimed invention, viz, developing campaign plans that optimize
differential promotion allocation among prospective customers. (Examiner’s
Answer, pp. 3 and 6), and the Harhen system is closely analogous to the claimed
marketing campaign-planning system. (Examiner’s Answer, pp. 13-14). In
particular, the teaching of Harhen is directed to a method of solving a projection
problem for strategic planning in any business enterprise. Harhen teaches that the
method can be used “to determine the behavior of a variable in the future.”
(Harhen, col. 5, lines 54-55.) Marketing campaign planning is a strategic planning
exercise that requires a projection as to how different variables will affect future
sales in order to optimize a campaign plan. Thus, the teachings of Harhen would
have been reasonably pertinent to the problem with which the appellants were
concerned. See In re Kahn, 441 F.3d at 986-87, 78 USPQ2d at 1336 (citing In re
Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1447 (Fed. Cir. 1992)).
We further find that one reasonably skilled in the applicable art would have
been aware of the nature of the extensive use of computer-implemented systems in
the marketing industry, of the prior art marketing campaign-planning systems of
Gerace and Deaton, and of the analogous prior art strategic planning system of
Harhen. Based on this awareness, and recognizing that there are differences
between the claimed subject matter and the state of the prior art, we hold that the
gap between the prior art and the claimed method is simply not so great as to
render the claimed method nonobvious to one reasonably skilled in the art. We
hold the claimed method to be an obvious variation on the prior art marketing
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