Appeal No. 2000-2057
Application 08/838,791
maximum value [answer, pages 12-13].
We will not sustain this rejection. Although we agree
with the examiner that the admitted prior art discloses that
half-tone processing and shading compensation were both performed
by prior art systems, the applied prior art does not establish
that it was obvious to produce half-tone image data from the
shading compensated image data as recited in independent claims
1, 5 and 8. The admitted prior art described in the
specification falls short of teaching performing the shading
compensation before the half-tone processing. We agree with
appellant that the operation of Nosaki does not equate to the
claimed calculating a shading factor for each pixel by dividing a
preset maximum brightness value by the image data sequentially
read from the shading memory unit. A calculated value, as used
by Nosaki, cannot be considered to be a preset value as claimed.
A key feature of appellant’s invention specifically eliminates
this calculating step [specification, page 3]. Despite the
similarities between the claimed invention and the teachings of
Ito, Nosaki and the admitted prior art, the collective teachings
of the applied prior art do not teach the invention as
specifically recited in independent claims 1, 5 and 8.
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