Appeal No. 2004-0823
Application No. 09/555,391
rectified in Ohhashi. Therefore, not only is the proposed combination of Ohhashi and Novik an
apparent attempt to reconstruct the claimed invention in hindsight, but we can see no useful
purpose which would be served by combining these teachings.
Since we have found no basis for combining the teachings of Ohhashi and Novik, and
since none of the additionally applied references overcome this deficiency, all rejections which
rely on this combination of references are also improper. Therefore, we also do not sustain the
examiner’s rejection of claims 2-11, 12-18, 20-22, 24-30, 38-46, 48, 49, 50, 54-59 and 62.
We now consider the rejection of claim 32 based on Fang and Novik. The examiner
essentially finds that Fang teaches the claimed invention except that Fang does not necessarily
teach that the reconstructed image is a decompressed image. The examiner notes that
decompressing medical images was well known as taught by Novik. The examiner finds that it
would have been obvious to the artisan to decompress the medical images of Fang as taught by
Novik. The examiner also asserts that the windowing parameters of Fang are combinable with
the imaging and viewing parameters of Novik [final rejection, pages 4-5, incorporated into
answer at page 5].
Appellants argue that Fang’s teachings are essentially the same as the Ohhashi teachings
which were argued above. Therefore, appellants argue that claim 32 is improperly rejected for
the same reasons discussed above with respect to the rejection based on Ohhashi and Novik
[brief, pages 15-16]. The examiner responds that Fang teaches compression [answer, page 15],
while appellants contend that Fang does not teach compression and is not related to the claimed
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