Appeal No. 96-0650
Application No. 08/117,591
Claims 1 through 3, 6 through 8, 17 through 19, 28, 31,
32 and 36 through 38 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Matsunawa in view of Hardy.
Claims 4, 5, 9 through 16, 20 through 27, 29, 30, 33
through 35, 39 and 40 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Matsunawa in view of Hardy and Foley.
Reference is made to the briefs and the answers for the
respective positions of the appellant and the examiner.
OPINION
The obviousness rejections are reversed.
Matsunawa discloses apparatus for detecting a marked
region during a single scan of a document. The examiner
acknowledges that Matsunawa is silent concerning thinning of
the marked region (Answer, page 4). For such a teaching, the
examiner turns to Hardy. According to the examiner (Answer,
pages 4 and 5):
Hardy et al discloses a system for thinning
images. Hardy teaches that thinning is performed by
examining the pixels adjacent to a given pixel, and
carried out until an image formed of only lines or
dots remains (column 2, lines 27-68). Hardy et al
further teaches that the system may be used to make
a zone of interest more easily recognizable (column
1, lines 23-38).
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