Appeal No. 2004-2147
Application No. 10/241,556
§ 103 rejection of claims 5/1, 6/1, 12/8, and 13/8 over Sayed
Instant claim 5 recites, as a further limitation of claim 1, that as an effective image
size of the solid-state detector becomes large, a magnification ratio of pixel density
transformation in the process is “set to be low” with respect to each of a row and column
direction. The “effective image size,” as it relates to a solid-state radiation detector,
means the read out image size. (Spec. at 31.) Appellant’s definition of “magnification
ratio of pixel density transformation” appears inconsistent, or at least ambiguous, in view
of pages 32 and 33 of the specification. It is not clear, for example, how the term
“magnification ratio of pixel density transformation” may mean “the rate of lowering of the
pixel density,” but “setting” such a ratio “to be low” means that the pixel density “is
lowered.”
In any event, appellant provides an example, at pages 33 through 35 of the
specification, of what may be meant by the claim language, wherein a pixel size of an
input signal is transformed to a larger pixel size. Whatever the scope of claim 5, the
claim must include within that scope a transforming process whereby an input pixel size
is smaller than the pixel size of the output device.
Sayed discloses a variety of pixel sizes for the input device (col. 8, ll. 21-40), with
a basic size of 15x15 micrometers, which results in the largest effective image size (4k X
4k; col. 5, ll. 9-15). The smallest pixel size is most likely smaller than the mis-matched
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