Appeal No. 97-2699
Application 08/112,535
As pointed out by our reviewing court, we must first determine the scope of the claim.
"[T]he name of the game is the claim.” In re Hiniker Co., 150 F.3d 1362, 1369, 47 USPQ2d 1523,
1529 (Fed. Cir. 1998). Unlike Appellant's claims 1 through 27, Appellant's claim 28 does recite
limitation directed to selecting an optimal filter based upon the most frequently occurring size.
Appellant's claim 28 is directed to a method of performing a profile analysis for determining size of a
feature by identifying positions of the feature starting points and ending points, identifying the feature by
pairing the starting and ending points and determining size of the identified feature by subtracting the
position of the starting point and ending point.
Toriu teaches in column 4, line 64, through column 5, line 63, a simplified discrimination
method of selecting the pixels located by an X-axis and Y-axis point that define a pattern contour.
Toriu teaches that the grey level gradient vectors of the pixels are determined in X-axis and Y-axis
direction. The magnitude of the grey level gradient of each pixels is compared with those of neighboring
pixels located in either direction of X-axis or Y-axis. The pixel which has the maximum magnitude of
gray level gradient among those of adjacent pixel is discriminated from each group as a contour line.
Thus, we find that Toriu teaches identifying positions of feature starting points in the region of interest
and identifying positions of feature ending points in the region of interest as recited in Appellant's claim
28.
Turning to Moorehead, we find that Moorehead teaches in Figures 8 and 9 and in
5
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