Appeal 2007-0156
Application 10/386,326
ANALYSIS
With respect to the 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) rejection of independent
claim 1 based on the teachings of Rubley, the Examiner indicates (Answer
3-4) how the various limitations are read on the disclosure of Rubley. In
particular, the Examiner directs attention to the illustrations in Figures 4 and
9 of Rubley, as well as the accompanying disclosure beginning at column 7,
line 48 of Rubley. As described and illustrated in Rubley, a selection
(Figure 9) is made between a transmissive scanning mode of operation and a
reflective scanning mode of operation.
Appellant’s arguments in response assert that the Examiner has not
shown how each of the claimed features is present in the disclosure of
Rubley so as to establish a prima facie case of anticipation. Appellant’s
arguments (Br. 6-8; Reply Br. 2-4) focus on the contention that, in contrast
to the claimed invention which requires a two-path method, i.e., a reflective
scan path and a transmissive scan path, Rubley discloses only the
transmissive scan path as claimed. According to Appellant, Rubley’s
description of the reflective scanning mode does not satisfy the requirements
of claim 1 since there is no disclosure of the generation of a scan pattern.
We note, initially, that we agree with Appellant that the operation of
the reflective scanning mode disclosed by Rubley does not provide for the
generation of a scan pattern. As argued by Appellant (Reply Br. 3-4), the
backlighting produced by the fluorescent lamp 82 in the reflective scanning
mode of Rubley merely provides a gross illumination of an area to be
scanned and not a scan “pattern” as claimed. While the Examiner is correct
(Answer 5) that the reflective medium in Rubley is scanned line by line as
the medium moves within the field of view of the camera 66, this does not,
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