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. 8Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007