Appeal 2007-0271
Application 09/750,948
evaluates, or analyzes, each customer profile in order to
generate customized recommendations. The Net Perceptions
software must be programmed to correlate specific customer
profile data with a particular set of recommendations if the
recommendations are to be customized for each customer. As
a matter of fact, Net Perceptions' "recommendation engine
zeroes in on individual preferences by pooling information
from current and previous calls, and by drawing upon a
database of information on other customers with similar
buying patterns" (¶ 4), thereby indicating that patterns of
successful sales are gleaned from the patterns of "other
customers with similar buying patterns." Clearly, Net
Perceptions analyzes customer data to determine one or more
patterns. Then, the sales agent may be prompted to enter
additional customer information and/or be provided with
personalized recommendations for each customer. These
instructions and/or output generated by Net Perceptions are
not only based on rules, but may also be interpreted as rules
generated by Net Perceptions and presented to the sales
agent.
(Answer 8-9.2)
Based on these conflicting positions, the § 102(b) issue before us is,
does Net Perceptions disclose "one or more data analysis tools comprising
executable instructions to analyze said customer data to determine one or
more patterns and generate a set of rules based upon said patterns," as
required by claim 1?
With respect to the § 103(a) issue, Appellant contends:
Neither the Net Perceptions Publication or Andrews, taken
singularly or in combination, teaches "one or more data
analysis tools comprising executable instructions for
analyzing said customer data from said plurality of channels
2 The paragraph numbers correspond to handwritten numbers on the
documents in the record.
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013