Appeal No. 2006-2184
Application No. 09/819,427
that involves (1) receiving information from a customer as to products that the
customer uses (e.g., operating system type, software such as Microsoft Word,
etc.) [see Sullivan, col. 7, lines 37-44; Figs. 5 and 6]; (2) creating a profile for the
customer that includes the received customer information (i.e., information
pertaining to the user is stored including the user’s contact information, operating
system type, values entered by the user in problem submission fields, etc.)
[Sullivan, cols. 34-46]; (3) evaluating the customer information in the profile [id.];
(4) identifying customer support information specifically relevant to the products
that the customer uses [Sullivan, col. 7, lines 44-57; Fig. 7]; and (5) presenting
the customer support information to the customer in at least one personalized
web page [id.].2
Although Sullivan anticipates at least claim 1, obviousness rejections can
nevertheless be based on references that happen to anticipate the claimed
subject matter. In re Meyer, 599 F.2d 1026, 1031, 202 USPQ 175, 179 (CCPA
1979). Moreover, in affirming a multiple-reference rejection under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103, the Board may rely on less than the total number of references relied on
by the examiner. In re Bush, 296 F.2d 491, 496, 131 USPQ 263, 266- 67 (CCPA
1961); In re Boyer, 363 F.2d 455, 458 n.2, 150 USPQ 441, 444 n.2 (CCPA
1966). Under this analysis, the teachings of Dedrick are merely cumulative to
2 Regarding step (5), the personalized web page shown in Fig. 5 of Sullivan contains a search
string 90 that is dynamically generated via diagnostic map that examines the client’s system
(including existing applications, registry information, etc.) and communicates with the technical
support server to derive the search string. In addition, the system can produce a self-help answer
or URL [Sullivan, col. 8, lines 36-55].
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