Appeal No. 1997-3480
Application No. 08/315,841
85 degrees or not less than 82 degrees [brief, page 7]. This
argument alone would not be persuasive because the examiner
has acknowledged this deficiency in the references and has
cited Akamatsu to overcome this deficiency. We agree with the
examiner that Akamatsu’s teaching of greater than 80 degrees
would suggest the claimed angles of not less than 82 degrees
or not less than 85 degrees.
Appellants’ second argument is that neither Uehara nor
Murakami teaches the use of polarized light as recited in the
claims. The examiner notes in the answer that Akamatsu
teaches the use of polarized light and is relied on to supply
this
teaching [answer, pages 5-6]. We agree that polarized light
is broadly suggested by Akamatsu.
Appellants’ third argument with respect to the
independent claims is that Akamatsu is related to height
detection rather than inclination detection and the device of
Akamatsu eliminates inclination errors as a problem.
Appellants argue that there is no motivation to combine the
height detection ideas of Akamatsu with the inclination
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