Appeal No. 95-1217
Application 08/039,674
basis and is meaningless in the context of the claim. In the
Examiner’s view, it is not clear what role "light intensity"
plays in a digitized image. The Examiner states that it is
also not clear how light intensity is inverted. Claim 18 is
reproduced as follows, with emphasis added to the relevant
language:
18. The computerized mine detection apparatus of claim
12, wherein:
one or more of the processing series inverts a light
intensity of each of portion of the object within the image
prior to discriminating the objects.
This rejection is reversed because a person of ordinary
skill in the art would understand the bounds of the claim. It
is common to refer to a data element in a digital environment
by the names of the real world information which the data
element represents. Thus, a person of ordinary skill in the
art would understand that the phrase "light intensity" refers
to a numerical value associated with a portion of the image
based on a determination as to the intensity of the light in
that portion of the image. They would further understand that
claim 18 calls for the inversion of this numerical value.
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