Appeal No. 1999-1520
Application No. 08/634,203
Reply Brief (Paper No. 15) for appellant’s position with respect to the claims which stand
rejected.
OPINION
The section 102 rejection of independent claims 1 and 19 in view of Yamada is set
forth on pages 3 and 4 of the Answer. For the “analyzing means and method step for
adaptively determining positions of a first subset of pixels in said reference block from a
variable feature of said reference block,” the rejection refers first to column 1, lines 61-62
and column 5, lines 20-21. In particular, the reference is submitted to disclose “a
decimation information setting unit (4) for variably setting interval information for pixels to
be decimated in the reference block.” The rejection also points out reference position
setter (9), and text at column 5, lines 58-63 and column 6, lines 1-17.
However, the noted text at columns 1, 5, and 6 of Yamada discloses that the
decimation interval information for decimating pixels located within the blocks is set in
advance. While we might agree that the pre-setting of the decimation interval information
could be considered “variable,” the claims require more. Claim 1 requires “analyzing
means for adaptively determining positions of a first subset of pixels in said reference
block from a variable feature of said reference block,” and further that pixels in the
reference block and the check block are sampled at positions determined by the analyzing
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