Appeal No. 1999-2069
Application 08/397,639
We generally agree with the Examiner's response (EA10-11),
except for our comments in footnote 2. In addition, we note that
an "interval change is defined here as a pathological change
which has occurred after the previous examination and before the
current examination" (Kano, col. 1, lines 48-51). The "interval
change" has nothing inherently to do with the kind of shifts.
Kano discloses causes of misregistration in Fig. 12, which
involve translation (e.g., due to lung expansion), rotation
(e.g., due to lateral inclination), and scaling (e.g., due to A-P
inclination), as well as more complicated factors. Kano relates
to image registration of radiation images and is very similar to
the disclosed and claimed subject matter except that it relates
to more complex misregistration problems. Appellants do not
argue what language in claim 1 distinguishes over Kano.
Appellants argue that Smilansky does not suggest applying
its inspecting method to radiation images (Br5). The Examiner
responds that Kano, not Smilansky, is relied on for teaching
subtraction of radiation images (EA11).
We agree with the Examiner. Smilansky evidences that one of
ordinary skill in the image registration art had knowledge of
affine transformations for image registration, in general. One
of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to apply
the affine transformations taught in Smilansky because they are
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