Appeal No. 2005-0342
Application No. 09/758,787
Suzuki is to perform lighting source calculations. Additionally, we find no
evidence that modifying Suzuki to perform the calculation with floating point math
would produce an inoperative device. To the contrary, we find that Suzuki
teaches that it is possible to perform lighting source calculations using floating
point math.
We find, as appellant points out on page 6 of the brief, that Suzuki
recognizes that the prior art makes use of floating point math. Suzuki teaches
that computer graphics systems make use of geometric processing which
includes coordinate conversion of vertices of a figure and makes use of normal
vectors. (See column 1, lines 33-37). These calculations are performed using
float type real numbers in a complex equation, equation 4. See column 1, lines
62-64. The complex equation (equation 4, in column 2) includes the terms
(N.L.i), (N.H.i), At.i and Sp.i; where N is the normal vector (see column 2, line 37),
L.i is the light source vector (see column 2, line 38), H.i is the halfway vector (see
column 2, lines 39-43), At.i is the attenuation (See column 2,lines 50-54, note:
the distance from the light source is in the denominator of the equation defining
attenuation, thus attenuation decreases as the distance increases) and Sp.i is
the spot light factor (see column 2, lines 55-60). Suzuki teaches these floating
point calculations are often performed on a separate geometry processor. (See
column 3, lines 1-5). After the geometric processing is performed the results are
provided to a rendering processor which develops and draws the pixels. (See
column 1, lines 38-41). Thus, we find that Suzuki explicitly teaches calculating
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Last modified: November 3, 2007