Appeal No. 2000-0404
Application No. 08/626,433
"a more flexible classification scheme than could be obtained
simply by Mita's measure of a single spatial frequency
characteristic." Appellant has not argued this point.
The examiner continues (Answer, page 6) that "[a]lthough
Mita and Fujisawa are believed to operate on three or more
'classifications' of image types for the reasons explained above,
the references do not explicitly state this feature."
Nonetheless, the examiner asserts that separating an image into
at least three classifications and processing them differently is
both well-known and also taught by Tanioka. Accordingly, the
examiner maintains that it would have been obvious to use at
least three classifications in Mita's system. Appellant objects,
and we agree with appellant.
Mita does not disclose three or more image classifications.
The only determination made by Mita is whether the image is an
edge or a non-edge area. See, for example, column 4, lines 38-
45, or column 6, lines 33-41. Thus, as argued by appellant
(Brief, page 5), Mita is limited to two image classifications.
Fujisawa explains in the background of the invention how
prior art devices have based image processing on such detected
image characteristics as a character image, a continuous tone
image, and a screened dot image, or rather, three classes
classifications. Further, Fujisawa discloses (column 2, lines
4
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