Appeal No. 2006-2963
Application No. 10/309,969
combination of multiple points [answer, pages 7 and 11]. The Examiner cites de Boor
as teaching defining various points based on a convex combination of multiple points
and concludes that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the
time of the invention to utilize such a technique in Peters’ method to guarantee the
solvability of the coefficients for the quartic interpolant and concavity of the Bezier
polygon used to generate the quartic interpolant [Answer, pages 7, 8, and 11-13].
Regarding claims 3 and 4, the Examiner adds that Peters discloses all of the
claimed limitations except for defining a control point as a point at the intersection of (1)
a line through point P parallel to direction t, and (2) a line through P+ and parallel to
direction t+ [Answer, pages 8 and 9].
The Examiner cites de Boor as teaching defining the control point as the intersection of
tangents through P and P+, and concludes that it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to utilize such a technique in
Peters’ method to, among other things, guarantee the solvability of coefficients
associated with the quartic interpolant [Answer, pages 8-10].
Appellants argue that combining de Boor with Peters as proposed by the
Examiner is improper because Peters teaches away from the technique disclosed in de
Boor [Brief, page 7; Reply Brief, pages 6 and 7]. Appellants note that Peters explains
that the motivation for the disclosed technique is derived from an analysis of a
technique disclosed by Höllig. Höllig’s technique, however, is a modification of the de
Boor technique. Based on this sequence of improvements, Appellants conclude that
Peters’ technique is not complementary to Höllig’s technique, but rather an alternative to
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007