Appeal No. 97-2706
Application No. 08/340,946
through 17.
The disclosed invention relates to a method of detecting
a defect in an object.
Claim 14 is the only independent claim on appeal, and it
reads as follows:
14. A method of detecting a defect in an object
comprising:
forming a grey scale image of the object wherein the grey
scale image has a major axis;
forming a shifted image of the grey scale image by
shifting the grey scale image along the major axis; and
comparing the shifted image to the grey scale image to
detect the defect.
The reference relied on by the examiner is:
Gonzales et al. (Gonzales), “Digital Image Processing,”
Addison-Wesley, 1987, pages 47, 48 and 100 through 111.
Claims 14 through 17 stand rejected under the first
paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112 because:
3. The term “major axis” is in fact present in the
specification but it is not defined. Specification.
page 8, lines 25-27:
...shifting the duplicate image a distance 52
along a major axis of images 41, 42, and 43.
No explanation is made as to how “axes” are
determined (eg, axis of symmetry?) and thus there
are an infinite number of them. No axes are shown
2
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