Appeal Number: 2006-1650
Application Number: 09/903,500
enough to read on a recipient’s preference to be billed on a certain date, to be billed
monthly or quarterly, or indeed to have the electronic transmittal charged to the
recipient’s account. Since Comesanas clearly allows the recipient to choose
whether to pay electronic transmittal charges, and payment of the electronic
transmittal charge is a preference afforded the debtor/customer, Comesanas clearly
establishes the prima facie obviousness of claim 18 due to the breadth of the term
“delivery preferences.”
As further evidence that our broad reading of the term is the correct one, we
point out that “delivery preferences” seems to denote more than one preference.
Thus the term appears to subsume more than choosing mail or electronic delivery.
We further note that the only relationship between these preferences and the
determination of printed or electronic transmission is an association with billing
information. The claimed transmission determining may arise from the billing
information, or some consequence of the association rather than from the
preferences alone.
Secondly, even if “delivery preferences” in claim 18 were construed to mean
solely a preference for electronic or paper mail billing, claim 12 and claim 18 are
obvious over Comesanas for the following reason.
According to Appellant, the following facts are not in dispute:
1) The debtor can sign an agreement authorizing the creditor to include a
return transmittal charge on the invoice.
2) The invoice/payment transaction can occur by physical mail or electronic
delivery. (Reply Br. 2).
To these facts we add one more fact inferred from the italicized sentence in
our findings and one finding based on human nature:
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