Appeal No. 2006-1854
Application No. 09/867,174
Further, on pages 6 and 7 of the brief, appellant argues that Landvater discloses a system
to forecast replenishment needs at specific locations, i.e., determine the quantity of items
to be shipped to a plurality of locations. On page 7 of the brief, appellant asserts that
Landvater “is simply silent as to any method for constructing or selecting a plan to move
the forecast amount of items at the forecast time to each of the retail stores.” As such,
appellant concludes that Landvater fails to suggest the desirability of constructing a
plurality of alternative fulfillment plans for each of a plurality if geographic locations
within the supply chain as claimed. Appellant asserts, on page 8 of the brief, that if
Altendahl and Landvater were combined, Landvater’s teaching would provide the
destinations for the packages to be shipped and Altendahl‘s teaching would provide a
system of selecting the route to the to the destinations. Appellant asserts, on page 9 of
the brief, that this would not be the claimed system “in which the geographic location in
which an item that is the subject of the order is to be positioned is not known until after
the instructions evaluate each of the construed alternative fulfillment plans for each of a
plurality of geographic locations within a supply chain against a predetermined criteria.”
(emphasis original).
The examiner’s response to appellant’s arguments is on pages 7 through 14 of the
answer. On pages 7 and 8 of the answer, the examiner finds that Altendahl teaches all of
the limitations of claim 11 “except that [a] plurality of geographical destinations are
considered instead of one.” (emphasis original) The examiner finds that Altendahl
suggests that fulfillment plans are constructed for plural parcels which could be destined
for different addresses. On pages 8 and 9 of the answer, the examiner finds that
Landvater teaches moving an item or items to replenish inventories in a plurality of stores
in a supply chain. Based upon these findings the examiner states, on page 9 of the
answer that:
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