Appeal 2006-2157
Application 09/752,204
1 o but the art applied fails to describe or suggest that details of the one or
2 more private business functions performed by the automated trusted
3 agent remain unknown to other entities accessing the public business
4 trading hub.
5 The Examiner does not point anywhere in the applied art to an automated
6 trusted agent performing one or more of the recited business functions of the
7 independent claims to add private relationships to a public business trading hub,
8 and allowing confidential terms to be shielded from certain entities while allowing
9 non-critical information or terms in the exchange of commodities to freely flow
10 between entities via the automated public business trading hub, nor does the
11 Examiner show how the combined art suggests this. The Examiner’s example of
12 shielding authentication information is not an example of managing one of the
13 enumerated business functions.
14 Accordingly, the Examiner has not shown that all of the elements of the
15 claimed subject matter were within or were obvious from the applied prior art, and
16 we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 1, 3-5, 7-10, 12-34, 36-38, 40-
17 43, 45-69, 71-73, 75-78, and 80-101 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over
18 Barnes, Meltzer, Fox, and either of Haddad or Johnson.
19 REMARKS
20 If prosecution on the merits continues following this appeal, the Examiner
21 should consider whether the teachings of Conklin regarding its use of a
22 negotiations software engine placed on an intermediary site that manages business
23 information of buyers and sellers while retaining privacy over that information
24 raises issues of patentability in view of the art of record.
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