Appeal No. 1998-2989
Application No. 08/566,987
BACKGROUND
The appellant's invention relates to a method and apparatus for lossless
precompression of binary images. An understanding of the invention can be derived from
a reading of exemplary claim 1, which is reproduced below.
1. A method, operating in an image processing system, for compressing a
binary input image where the binary input image is represented as a regular array of binary
image signals, comprising the steps of:
identifying an orthogonally shaped, two-dimensional region of binary image signals
having the same state and a boundary encompassing the orthogonally shaped region;
determining the size of the orthogonally shaped region;
encoding the state and size of the orthogonally shaped region as a digital data
word;
storing the digital data word representing the encoded shape and size in
compression memory; and
repeating the above steps for each of a plurality of orthogonally shaped regions of
binary image signals present within the binary input image, wherein at least one of the
plurality of orthogonally shaped regions is generated by non-symmetrical division of a
larger image region.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the examiner in rejecting the appealed
claims are:
Cornyn, Jr. et al. (Cornyn) 4,484,081 Nov. 20, 1984
Keith et al. (Keith) 4,785,349 Nov. 15, 1988
Ghosh et al. (Ghosh) 5,163,104 Nov. 10, 1992
Stockholm 5,293,579 Mar. 08, 1994
2
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