Appeal No. 1998-0671
Application 08/285,328
pixel value (the modulating step 1 in Appellants' figure 1), rather
than the overall screening process of modulating followed by
thresholding. What the Examiner apparently intends to say is that it
would have been obvious to insert a step of adding a screen value to
the gray level pixel values before the step of reducing the number of
gray scale levels using an error diffusion process in Eschbach.
However, the only reason stated is that it was known in the APA of
Appellants' figure 1 and the Survey article, to add a screen value to
a pixel value. This is not persuasive motivation to modify.
Moreover, we fail to see why it would have been obvious to modify
Eschbach to add a screen value to the gray scale values before the
error diffusion step. Screening is a technique for transforming a
continuous tone image, such as a picture, to binary (black/white)
gray tone levels. Eschbach is not concerned with converting a
continuous tone image to binary levels, (it is already a binary
bitmap), but is only concerned with eliminating the gray levels where
the image has been increased in size. We find no motivation to
modulate the whole bitmap in Eschbach with a screen. The Examiner
has failed to establish a prima facie case of obviousness. The
rejection of claims 1 and 7 is reversed.
NEW GROUND OF REJECTION UNDER 37 CFR § 1.196(b)
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