Appeal 2006-3387
Application 09/385,489
sales performance of the selected items (e.g., incremental sales volume or
established trend line of sales volume for that retailer/retail chain) (Jones, col. 12,
ll. 4-8).
Jones’s electronic audit system audits and tracks the results of the retailer’s
promotion efforts while monitoring and recording all POS transactions for the
retailer (Jones, col. 12, ll. 12-14). Jones teaches that reports of these incremental
sales volume increases are sent to both the retailer and the manufacturer to support
the settlement process (Jones, col. 12, ll. 20-25). Jones discloses that the retailer
must summarize the necessary information on the promotional support activities,
including the report from the electronic audit system, and the retailer then invoices
the manufacturer, and deducts the price discount from checks paid by the retailer to
the manufacturer (Jones, col. 12, ll. 25-29). Thus, Jones’s electronic audit system
provides an independent audit of the incremental sales volume increase during a
trade promotion. Because Jones does not explicitly teach capturing and/or storing
predetermined payment value information and because Jones’s system has no need
of this information in order to provide its independent audit to the parties, the
Examiner has not shown how Jones inherently discloses the capture and/or storage
of this information.
The missing elements of Jones’s audit system are akin to the functions
typically provided by a third party escrow agent to parties of a contract. In
particular, an escrow agent typically holds onto property of one party to a contract
until such time as it determines that certain contractual conditions have been met,
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