Appeal No. 2001-2293
Application No. 08/984,602
Instant claim 17 requires means for determining presence of the modulated light
as a function of relative luminances of portions of a frame of digital video data and
difference luminances between the portions of the frame and corresponding portions of
a previous frame. In appellant’s embodiment of the invention, separate non-linear
filters (A and B; Fig. 4) are used to (1) determine relative luminances within a frame and
(2) analyze differences in luminance between frames, consistent with the separate
requirements of the claim.
The rejection (Final Rejection at 2-3) relies on material in columns 3 and 4 of
Iura for the means for determining presence of the light, using relative and difference
luminances. However, the description at column 3, line 45 through column 4, line 65 of
the reference (and the more pertinent teachings at column 5, line 55 through column 6,
line 8) details comparison of differences in coordinates with respect to different frames
for generating displacement signals to emulate signals generated by movement of a
pointing device (e.g., a mouse), rather than using difference in luminance between
different frames to determine presence of light.
Independent claims 1, 2, and 16 contain similar limitations to those of claim 17
that we find lacking in the references.
Claim 3, the remaining independent claim, requires a first detection circuit to
detect presence of modulated light having a first modulation frequency, and a second
detection circuit to detect modulated light having a second modulation frequency. The
rejection (Final Rejection at 3) relies on Iura Figure 1, elements 105 and 107, 109 as
-5-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007