Appeal No. 1998-1387 Page 13
Application No. 08/208,791
exposure can be always obtained when the human's skin ... is
the subject of the image.” Col. 2, ll. 60-63.
As mentioned regarding the combination of references,
teachings of the prior art would have suggested the
desirability of substituting Imai’s automatic exposure
adjustment operation for Haruki’s automatic exposure
adjustment operation. Upon such substitution, the resulting
apparatus would have performed an automatic exposure
adjustment operation on a skin-colored subject after
performing an automatic focusing operation on the same.
Because exposure would be adjusted only after focusing,
exposure would be adjusted ipso facto only on a subject that
is in-focus. In view of these teachings, we are persuaded
that the combination of references in combination with the
prior art as a whole would have suggested the claimed
limitations of adjusting exposure of a skin-colored subject
that is in focus. Therefore, we affirm the rejection of
claims 1, 11, 12, and 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
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