Appeal No. 2002-1646
Application No. 09/440,233
Cir. 1984). These showings by the Examiner are an essential part
of complying with the burden of presenting a prima facie case of
obviousness. Note In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d
1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
With respect to independent claims 1, 9, and 15, Appellant’s
response to the obviousness rejection asserts a failure by the
Examiner to establish a prima facie case of obviousness since
proper motivation for the Examiner’s proposed combination of
references has not been set forth. After reviewing the arguments
of record from Appellant and the Examiner, we are in general
agreement with Appellant’s position as stated in the Brief.
Our interpretation of the applied Kobayashi and Shimura
references coincides with that of Appellant, i.e., in contrast to
the claimed invention which requires a combination of log-
transformed and non-log transformed data for image conversion,
Kobayasi utilizes only non-log transform values while Shimura
employs only log transform data. Given this deficiency in the
disclosures of the applied prior art, we can find no teaching or
suggestion, and the Examiner has pointed to none, as to how and in
what manner the Kobayashi and Shimura references might have been
combined to arrive at the claimed invention. The mere fact that
the prior art may be modified in the manner suggested by the
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