Appeal No. 2002-1550
Application No. 09/158,884
claim 1 contains nothing about “improving the halftone dot count,” the argument
directed to this non-claimed feature (principal brief-page 12) is not persuasive.
Accordingly, the rejection of claims 1, 3, 7 and 8 under 35 U.S.C. §102 (b) is
sustained.
Turning now to claim 2, this claim adds the limitation of a “local roughness device
that determines a local roughness of the input image...” The examiner explains that
Ohuchi determines such a local roughness, at column 18, lines 39-61, by referring to
*)m*, an absolute value of a density difference between density levels of a center
picture element and each of the surrounding picture elements.
Appellants’ response is merely to state that the “local roughness according to the
present invention is different in both terms of design and in terms of purpose” (principal
brief-page 13). Since appellants have not indicated any specifics as to how or why the
instant invention’s “local roughness” is different from that asserted by the examiner as
being taught by Ohuchi, and the examiner’s rationale appears, at first blush, to be
reasonable, we will sustain the rejection of claim 2 under 35 U.S.C. §102 (b).
Appellants do not contend that any specific meaning should be ascribed to the term
“local roughness” as per the instant specification and claim 2 clearly ascribes no
particular meaning to this term.
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