Appeal No. 1997-3301
Application No. 08/159,879
(4) stamping the diffractive lens pattern replicated on
the rigid material onto an infrared transmissive deformable
sheet to provide the chopper.
Appellants describe the operation of a chopper as follows
(Specification, pp. 1-2):
Forward looking infrared (FLIR) systems
generally utilize a detector and a chopper system in
conjunction with the detector for calibration of the
detector. Such calibration is generally performed
on-line and between detector scanning operations. .
. . More recently, FLIR systems have been developed
which use uncooled detectors, such systems being
preferred when sufficient sensitivity can be
obtained therefrom. An uncooled detector system
utilizing a ferroelectric detector is intrinsically
a differencing detector whose signal is the
difference between that of the viewed scene and that
of a reference source. In order to minimize dynamic
range problems in the detectors, it is desirable to
match the reference flux as closely as possible to
the average scene flux. This is typically
accomplished with the chopper which alternately
permits the detector to view the scene and then view
a reference source representing the average scene
flux.
The examiner relies on Ohtaka in view of various
combinations of Isono, Suzuki, Trotta, Horigome and/or Hayashi
to establish a prima facie case of obviousness under 35 U.S.C.
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