Appeal 2007-2451
Application 10/694,925
1 Appellant contends that Blossom doesn’t describe allocation of payment across
2 multiple non-zero amounts, and that Cameron doesn’t describe a point of sale
3 terminal or multiple account card. However, Cameron does describe allocation of
4 payment across multiple non-zero amounts (FF 13-14), and Blossom does describe
5 a point of sale terminal and a multiple account card (FF 05-10), and the Appellant
6 does not dispute this (FF 11, 15, and 16). Thus, the combined art applied by the
7 Examiner describes these claim limitations and these arguments by the Appellant
8 are unpersuasive.
9 The Appellant next contends that it is improper to combine the teachings of
10 Blossom and Cameron. Their initial contention is that the Examiner’s findings of
11 motivation to combine the two are improper. The Examiner found that one of
12 ordinary skill would have combined them to include receiving at the POS terminal
13 a response in the form of an elective distribution feature of allocating payments
14 between stored value gift certificate and credit card to limit the use of the credit
15 cards and their attendant high rates of interest.
16 We agree with the Examiner, and also repeat our above purchase scenario in
17 which the stored-value balance is insufficient to cover a purchase, requiring an
18 allocation between the stored-value account and the credit account, as an additional
19 motivation to combine purchase allocation with the use of stored-value accounts
20 and credit accounts. In any event, a combination of familiar elements, such as
21 multiple use cards and payment allocation, according to known methods is likely to
22 be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results (see KSR, supra).
23 Thus, not only does the Examiner provide a rational motivation that one of
24 ordinary skill would have known to combine Blossom and Cameron, the
17
Page: Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013