Appeal No. 2006-1854
Application No. 09/867,174
We hold that the claim necessarily requires the steps to be performed in the order recited.
The alternative fulfillment plans are constructed in response to receipt of an order, the
evaluation of the fulfillment plans can not occur until after the fulfillment plans are
constructed and the selection of the fulfillment plans can not occur until they are
evaluated against the criteria. Further, claim 11 recites “the selected one of the plurality
of alternative fulfillment plan being used to position the item at one of the plurality of
geographic locations within the supply chain,” thus claim 11 recites a system that
determines the location for an ordered item to be moved to in response to evaluating and
selecting a plan to move the ordered item from a sourcing point to more then one
location. We do not find that, either Altendahl or Landvater teach or suggest such a
feature.
We find that Altendahl teaches a system which evaluates a plurality of methods of
shipping a package and selects the appropriate shipping method based upon a set of rules.
While Altendahl does teach that the rules may cover a plurality of locations (see for
example, figure 6 and discussion in column 12, lines 19 through 39), we do not find that
Altendahl teaches or suggests that in response to an order, more then one destination is
evaluated for the same order and a determination is made as to which destination the item
ordered is to be shipped. We find that Landvater teaches a system for forecasting a
retail store’s needs for items. See abstract. While Landvater does teach the items may be
shipped to different locations in the supply chain, we do not find that Landvater, in
response to an order, constructs alternative fulfillment plans to ship the ordered item to
different locations and then select the location based upon an evaluation of the fulfillment
plan. Thus, we do not find that the combination of Altendahl and Landvater teach or
suggest the invention as claimed in independent claim 11. Claims 12 and 14 through 20
depend upon claim 11. Accordingly, we will not sustain the examiner’s rejection of
claim 11, 12, 14 through 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Altendahl
in view of Landvater.
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007