Appeal No. 1997-0033
Application No. 08/157,842
In a decision dated May 10, 1999, the 35 U.S.C. § 103
rejection of claims 21 and 28 was sustained because appellants
failed to rebut the examiner’s prima facie case of
obviousness.
Upon reconsideration of our decision, we find that
appellants have presented convincing arguments that the
applied references would not have suggested the claimed
invention to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Although we still maintain that Meno discloses "low-pass
filtering in one direction, and high-pass filtering in the
other direction" (Decision, page 5), we now agree with
appellants’ argument (Request, page 5) that:
Meno’s filtering is taught to be along a [sic]
arbitrary directions determined by local image
structures, namely along directions of arteries in a
coronary angiographic image. The image streaks
removed in this invention are in one particular
direction, namely perpendicular to the row of
electrometer probes.
Stated differently, the "various directions of arteries in an
image bear absolutely no relation to the single direction of
the row of electrometer probes by which the image is acquired"
(Request, page 3). In short, appellants have correctly argued
that the applied references neither teach nor would they have
2
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007