Appeal No. 2007-0395 Page 10
Application No. 09/789,678
1 20 such that determining the retailer is not based upon carrying the product,
2 but is based upon the retailer servicing a given area for the supplier, if and
3 when service is required” (Brief, p. 14).
4 These arguments are not commensurate in scope with what is claimed.
5 Their acceptance requires us to read into the claims a step of determining the
6 local retailer on customer support and service and/or on a supplier’s retailer
7 service area. However, given their broadest reasonable interpretation, the
8 claims on appeal require no more than the local retailer being determined
9 based upon customer location. In re Self, 671 F.2d 1344, 1348, 213 USPQ
10 1, 5 (CCPA 1982) (“Many of appellant’s arguments fail from the outset
11 because, … they are not based on limitations appearing in the claims … .”).
12 As the Examiner correctly indicates, Walker discloses a system by which a
13 customer may specify, online, “a geographic location” (col. 9, lines 64-65),
14 thus producing a list of candidate retailers. A person of ordinary skill
15 practicing the Walker method would be led to select a retailer by geographic
16 location, which would include, as common sense dictates, selecting a retailer
17 in the geographic location corresponding to the customer’s location.
18 As regards the step of linking the local retailer and supplier, Walker
19 describes such link at, for example, col. 17, lines 13-28.
20 Appellant also argues that Walker fails to disclose transmitting funds
21 to the local retailer to service the customer and servicing the customer at the
22 local retailer on behalf of the supplier as a result of receiving the funds.
23 (Brief, p. 14).
24 Walker discloses, as Appellant concedes (Brief, p. 15), a
25 compensation scheme by which a manufacturer pays a local retailer
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Last modified: September 9, 2013