Appeal No. 2001-1420
Application No. 08/988,453
The examiner relies on the following references:
Dir et al. (Dir) 5,193,011 Mar. 9, 1993
Takahashi 5,614,936 Mar. 25, 1997
(filed Oct. 12, 1994)
Claims 1-15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over
Takahashi and Dir.
We refer to the Final Rejection (Paper No. 8) and the Examiner’s Answer (Paper
No. 16) for a statement of the examiner’s position and to the Brief (Paper No. 15) and
the Reply Brief (Paper No. 17) for appellants’ position with respect to the claims which
stand rejected.
OPINION
The rejection (Answer at 3) contends that Takahashi teaches dividing a time for
formation of a pixel into a plurality of periods and performing tone level control based on
the image data in each of the periods, referring to material at columns 3 and 4 of the
reference. Takahashi is deemed, however, to lack a teaching of “multi-tone level
including at least three levels.” (Id. at 4.) The rejection relies on Dir as teaching multi-
tone level including at least three levels, referring to Figure 1 and Figure 4(c) of Dir.
(Id.)
Appellants argue (Brief at 4-5) that each “sub-pixel” in Takahashi is either
exposed to be black or is unexposed, not a multi-tone level including at least three
levels as required by claims 1 and 13. Further, appellants argue that the “halftone cells”
-3-
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