Appeal No. 2000-1499
Application No. 08/825,474
perceptual metric as representative of a prediction as to how a
human eye would perceive a reconstructed image of an encoded
image could be found in Yamaoka, the instant claims require the
perceptual metric generator for determining a perceptual metric
to use “a just noticeable difference map that represents the
fidelity of an encoded image” and even the examiner admits that
Yamaoka “does not explicitly provide for a JND map” [answer-page
8]. However, the examiner contends that since Yamaoka provides
for a “difference” [presumably the subtraction results in
response to which a decision circuit makes a decision of an
optimum compression factor-column 4, lines 36-38], “there is no
reason why the map of Yamaoka cannot be just noticeable” [answer-
page 8].
The examiner’s conclusion is but mere speculation which
cannot be a proper basis for a rejection based on 35 U.S.C. 103.
Merely because JND may have been known, this is no reason, per
se, to suppose that it would have been obvious to employ this
technique in the system of Yamaoka, without some suggestion in
the prior art to do so. The “difference” in Yamaoka is not a
“just noticed difference,” as claimed. We note that the examiner
reasons, at page 4 of the answer, that it would have been obvious
“to use the conventional and well known concept of JND, since
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