Appeal No. 2003-0350
Application 08/771,399
Turning to a consideration of the Examiner’s obviousness
rejection of claims 27, 31, and 35-37 based on the combination of
Nishimura and Juen, we do not sustain this rejection as well.
For all of the reasons discussed previously, we find no
indication from the Examiner as to how and in what manner
Nishimura and Juen, given their differing problems and solutions,
might be combined to arrive at the claimed invention. The mere
fact that the prior art may be modified in the manner suggested
by the Examiner does not make the modification obvious unless the
prior art suggested the desirability of the modification. In re
Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1783-84 (Fed. Cir.
1992).
We also do not sustain the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
rejection of dependent claims 38 and 39 in which the Reitmeier
and Ozaki references are separately added to the combination of
Nishimura and Juen. While Reitmeier and Ozaki provide teachings,
respectively, of oblique direction noise filtering (appealed
claim 38) and simultaneous readout of image signals (appealed
claim 39), there is nothing in either of these references that
would overcome the previously discussed deficiencies of Nishimura
and Juen.
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