Appeal 2007-1992
Application 09/318,447
of skill in the art and, relatedly, what one of ordinary skill in the art would
have known at the time the application was filed.
With respect to the rejection of claims 108-117, 151-156, and 176-183
under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) over Joseph, Teper, and Official Notice, the
Examiner properly determined the scope and content of the prior art and the
differences between the claimed subject matter and the prior art. Answer 5-
10. However, the logic underpinning the apparent reasoning for combining
the teachings of the references to reach the claimed invention depends on
additional factual findings as to the level of skill in the art at the time the
application was filed which are not now on the record. For example, the
Examiner stated
… [t]he examiner takes Official Notice that it would have been
obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to include in
Joseph/Teper … the client identifier identifying account information
previously supplied by a user of the client system wherein the user
does not need to log into the server system when ordering the item
(Per discussion above the combination of Joseph/Teper teach
appending a stored identifier to gain access to personal information to
automatically access stored account information thus eliminating the
need to input the authorization each time the server is accessed) … .
Answer 6. In other words, the Examiner takes the position that it would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide that the user does
not need to log in to the computer to order an item. Here Joseph, the primary
reference, concerns buying programs using interactive television where no
logging in is required to purchase a program. The secondary reference,
Teper, shows an online brokerage service with user authentication. There
appears to be no dispute about this. In Appellants’ words:
Joseph discloses storing information about the viewer (e.g.,
name, address, method of payment, and credit card number) in the
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