Appeal No. 2001-1009
Application No. 08/901,304
that Elischer teaches automatically locating and reading
handwritten numeric entries on a document by determining the
field overall confidence level (analogized by the examiner to
appellants’ “field recognition score”) which is derived from the
confidence levels of individual characters required in the field
(citing column 10, lines 33-37, of Elischer). The examiner
explains that the characters are based on coordinate positions,
citing column 6, lines 2-11, of Elischer, wherein the coordinate
positions correspond to the claimed “importance.”
We agree with appellants that nowhere in Elischer is there
an association of coordinate position with character importance.
Moreover, while Elischer does define an overall confidence level
for an entire field, the instant claims require the determination
of a field recognition score as a function of importance of a
character position. Elischer neither discloses nor suggests such
a limitation.
Thus, Elischer discloses a confidence level associated with
each numeric field reflecting the degree of confidence with which
the apparatus has recognized the numeric dollar amounts (column
3, lines 50-57); Elischer discloses the determination of
positions of pixels in the array of the fields (column 4, lines
26-28); Elischer locates predetermined fields running across the
-3–
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