HOSHINO et al V. TANAKA - Page 28




          Interference No. 103,208                                                    
          Hoshino et al. v. Tanaka                                                    

          and what the actual results were.                                           
               Consequently, all of Hoshino’s conclusory assertions of                
          improvement, in the motion, do not help to establish                        
          nonobvious- ness in a meaningful way.  Our opinion should not               
          be read as saying that unexpected results are necessary to                  
          show nonobvious- ness.  Rather, we simply note that Hoshino’s               
          motion H2 did not, with respect to the proposed new counts,                 
          assert and present evidence of "unexpected results," an                     
          objective indicia of nonobviousness, which if shown, can help               
          to demonstrate nonobviousness.                                              
               Additionally, it would appear that given the general                   
          recitation of count 1, i.e., that the corrected conversion                  
          coefficient is determined on the basis of the detected amount               
          of defocus, one with ordinary skill in the art would have                   
          appreciated that some results would be better than others                   
          depending on the precise calculation formula used.  And                     
          because count 1 specifically mentions the amount of defocus as              
          a factor and not the amount of defocus squared, cubed, or                   
          raised to any other higher order, it is more plausible that                 
          given count 1 one would naturally expect better results with                
          formulas having a first order term of the detected amount of                

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