Appeal No. 2006-1817 Page 14
Application No. 09/851,514
to fall with independent claim 1. As such, because we sustain the examiner’s
rejection of claim 1, we also sustain the rejection of these claims.
V. Dependent Claim 2
With respect to dependent claim 2, the examiner contends that Gerace
discloses the steps of “automatically identifying an inconsistency in achieving two
of said business management objectives; automatically determining a guideline for
resolving a trade-off between said two business objectives; and utilizing said
guideline in configuring said campaign plan.” (Examiner’s Answer, p. 8.) In
support of this contention, the examiner points to col. 15, lines 10-15 of Gerace,
which describe an equation that is used to rank advertisements determined to be
appropriate to a potential customer. The examiner also points to col. 15, lines 29-
35 of Gerace, which describes an embodiment in which the computer program
automates the weighting of criteria and in real time adjusts the intended audience
profile of advertisements using traditional regression analysis of the tracked
criteria. (Examiner’s Answer, p. 8.)
The examiner noted, “Harhen discloses recognizing inconsistencies,
balancing business goals and objectives, and utilizing hierarchies concerning
business goals and objectives, utilizing guidelines and making recommendations.”
(Examiner’s Answer, p. 24.) The examiner further found that Harhen teaches that
the method and apparatus of its invention has a wide range of uses outside of
strategic planning, including applicability “[w]herever multiple analytical methods
can be applied to a system to evaluate a component of the system.” (Examiner’s
Answer, p. 27 (emphasis omitted)). As such, the examiner rejected this dependent
claim as obvious over Gerace in view of Harhen in view of Deaton.
The appellants argue that claim 2 is separately patentable, because the
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