Appeal No. 2006-1874
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,351
identification of a person who will receive a debit, a person who
will receive a credit, the amount of such debit in units of said
commodity, the amount of such credit in units of said commodity,
and the identity of the deposit site,
posting said records of transactions to debit and credit the
deposit account data files of said persons to update said data
identifying a number of units of said commodity held for the
account of each said person;
said method permitting persons to conduct financial
transactions without reliance on national currencies in conducting
said financial transactions whereby obligations, of a person
receiving a said debit of said units of said commodity held at a
deposit site, to another person receiving a said credit of said units
of said commodity held at a said deposit site, are extinguished
upon posting of said records of transactions, thereby eliminating
payment risk.
Discussion
A. The rejection of claims 1-16 over Marks
and the Gold Certificate for obviousness
The patent owner argues independent claims 1, 9 and 13 as a group. We will specifically
discuss only claim 13. As for the dependent claims, the patent owner separately argues only
claims 6, 7 and 10, and only on the basis that those claims “specify a remote access means by
which a system user can access the system and submit transactions” (Brief at p.16).
An obviousness determination under 35 U.S.C. § 103 must be based on the underlying
factual inquiries of (1) the scope and content of the prior art; (2) the differences between the
claimed invention and the prior art; (3) the level of ordinary skill in the art; and (4) secondary
considerations of nonobviousness. Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17, 148 USPQ 459,
467 (1966). As explained below, the examiner incorrectly determined the differences between
the patent owner’s claimed invention and Marks. The rejection cannot be sustained.
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