Appeal No. 1999-1892
Application No. 08/883,157
color matrixing is used in the reference. Claims 1 through
3, 6 and 7 expressly state that the image sources are
combined without color matrixing.2
In view of the holding in In re Karlson, 311 F.2d 581,
584, 136 USPQ 184, 186 (CCPA 1963) that “omission of an
element and its function in a combination is an obvious
expedient if the remaining elements perform the same
functions as before,” the examiner is of the opinion (paper
number 21, pages 3 and 4) that “it would have been obvious
for one of ordinary skill in the art to disable
Butterfield’s NTSC coding application from the overall
operation of the reference’s stereoscopic encoder in order
to produce a 3-D color image without color matrixing for
non-NTSC display formats for suggested medical and
industrial applications.” The examiner indicates (paper
number 21, page 3) that Butterfield “does suggest non-NTSC
applications for the stereoscopic encoder which would
require display without color matrixing (Butterfield: column
2Appellants’ originally filed disclosure and claims never expressly
state that the colors are combined “without color matrixing.” If
there is a written description problem with this phrase in the claims,
then we leave it to the examiner to resolve with the appellants.
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