Appeal No. 2000-2065
Application No. 08/652,160
their ordinary and accustomed meaning, unless it appears from the
specification or the file history that they were used differently
by the inventor." In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480, 31 USPQ2d
1671, 1674 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
In determining the scope of the claims of the present
invention, we find that Appellants used the word "smoothing"
differently than as used by the Examiner. The Examiner uses the
word "smoothing" to include interpolation of the inter-stroke
gaps. See Answer, page 4, lines 12-13. It is known that
"interpolation" is to estimating a value of a function between
two known values. "Smoothing" is known in the prior art as a
method of reducing noise in an image and to prepare images for
further processing. Smoothing is often accomplished using
filters, such as by using a simple triangular filter. See, for
example, Appellants' specification page 27, lines 13-14, which
discloses that "the interpolated character is smoothed using a
simple triangular filter using conventional techniques well known
in the art." See also Figure 13 which shows the effect of
conducting a smoothing operation of the characters. Smoothing
has the effect of rounding the sharp edges. See, for example,
the edge formed by points 374b, 374a and 370c, which is rounded
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