Appeal No. 1998-0628
Application 08/197,100
For the reasons discussed above, we sustain the rejection
of claims 30-37 and 39-43.
Claims 25-29 and 44
Appellants argue (Br7) that claim 44 requires
"determining the image area of flaws in said component"
(step d) and "comparing said flaw image area with one or more
threshold values during image analysis" (step e), which steps
are not taught by Schmalfuss.
The Examiner finds (at EA5) these limitations in
figure 1, elements 10 and 22, and column 4, lines 42-43, of
Schmalfuss.
We disagree with the Examiner. The signal evaluation
device 10 is used for synchronization between the scanner and
stepper motor and produces a signal proportional to the image
dot pulse (col. 3, lines 35-44). The computer 22 evaluates
the signals. However, Schmalfuss does not measure the image
area of flaws or compare the flaw image area with a threshold
value. At each of the 4096 radial steps, the output fault
signal is fed to a threshold stage, which splits the signal
according to four adjustable digital thresholds, and the split
signals are fed to counters in the 64 sector counters (col. 4,
- 12 -
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007