Appeal No. 2000-2184
Application 08/629,626
film [brief, pages 4-7].
The examiner responds that the graininess of the film is
an inherent property of the film and, therefore, the image
reading method of Yamada in view of the admitted prior art would
inherently be reading signals from the film that are defocused
due to the graininess of the film’s material [answer, pages 6-7].
We agree with appellant that the examiner has failed to
establish a prima facie case of the obviousness of the invention
recited in claims 1, 6 and 17. The examiner’s position that the
method of Yamada, when applied to a captured film image, would
inherently extract signals caused by the graininess of the film
is not supported by any evidence on this record. Yamada teaches
that the high frequency components of the object image itself are
extracted. There is no teaching on this record, other than
appellant’s own disclosure, that the high frequency components
caused by the graininess of the film can be substituted for the
actual object image signals. The examiner’s view that the Yamada
method, when applied to captured film images, would inherently
operate to extract signals caused by the graininess of the film
is pure speculation on the part of the examiner. The examiner
cannot support a prior art rejection based on such speculation,
especially when the property upon which the speculation is based
6
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