Appeal No. 1999-1587 Application 08/601,751 case of obviousness. Note In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992). If that burden is met, the burden then shifts to the applicant to overcome the prima facie case with argument and/or evidence. Obviousness is then determined on the basis of the evidence as a whole and the relative persuasiveness of the arguments. See Id.; In re Hedges, 783 F.2d 1038, 1039, 228 USPQ 685, 686 (Fed. Cir. 1986); In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468, 1472, 223 USPQ 785, 788 (Fed. Cir. 1984); and In re Rinehart, 531 F.2d 1048, 1052, 189 USPQ 143, 147 (CCPA 1976). Only those arguments actually made by appellant have been considered in this decision. Arguments which appellant could have made but chose not to make in the briefs have not been considered [see 37 CFR § 1.192(a)]. With respect to representative, independent claim 6, the examiner finds that Ikeuchi teaches the invention of claim 6 except for the smoothing filter. The examiner cites Kawai as teaching the desirability of smoothing image data, and the examiner finds that it would have been obvious to use a -8-Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007