Appeal No. 2001-1420
Application No. 08/988,453
specification. We find no convincing rationale as to how Dir’s teaching may be properly
combined with Takahashi’s description of driving an optical printhead -- i.e., with pixels
having only two states -- so as to arrive at the subject matter of claim 1 or claim 13.
With regard to instant claim 12, appellants point out (Brief at 6) that the rejection
fails to make the requisite factual findings as to how the prior art is to be applied. The
examiner responds (Answer at 8) that the artisan would recognize that Dir’s “teaching of
dividing half-tone cells 105 into sixteen sub-cells suggests that the data representing
half-tone cells 105 are broken down into smaller data bits and of course, an image is
then printed based on the broken-down image data, as taught by Dir et al. in figures 1
and 7.” Appellants respond in turn (Reply Brief at 1-2) that the examiner’s assertions
do not speak to the specific requirements of claim 12.
Claim 12 requires, as a first step, converting an n-bit image data for one pixel
into a plurality of sets of m-bit data, wherein m is larger than 1 but smaller than n. For
at least the reason that Dir does not disclose or suggest converting image data for one
pixel into a plurality of sets of data, we agree with appellants that the specific
requirements of the claim have not been shown as obvious in view of the prior art
applied.
Since the prior art relied upon does not establish prima facie obviousness of the
subject matter of any of the independent claims (1, 12, and 13), we do not sustain the
section 103 rejection of claims 1-15.
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