Appeal No. 2003-0261
Application No. 09/126,203
In the examiner’s statement of rejection, on page 5, of the answer, it appears
that the examiner is presenting these references to show that color pass filters that
transmit infrared are well known in the art. However, the examiner’s rejection does not
provide an explanation of why one of ordinary skill in the art would modify Fontenot to
include the filters of Yamakawa and Dillon. As we stated above, we find no suggestion
in Fontenot to use color pass filters pass infrared light.
Appellants assert on page 10 of the brief that there is no motivation to combine
the references in the manner asserted by the examiner. On page 11 of the
supplemental brief the appellants assert “Fontenot does not have a need for infrared
subtraction from the visible light path. Fontenot filters unwanted infrared light from the
visible light that illuminates the surgical site.” Further, appellants argue that if Fontenot
were combined with Morimoto it would be self defeating as “the whole purpose of
Fontenot’s system is to independently process an infrared signal for independent
visualization of tissues surrounding a surgical site. Thus subtraction of infrared light
from this signal is not desirable.” We find these arguments convincing.
We find that Morimoto teaches an imaging system which does not use an
infrared cut filter. The incoming light is split by a prism, and applied to two image pick
up elements. The first image pick up element, item 4, is sensitive to both visible and
infrared light, the second image pickup element, item 5 is only sensitive to infrared light,
see page 5, paragraph 13, Morimoto. The outputs of the second image pickup element
(the infrared signal) is then subtracted from the output first (the infrared + visible) signal
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