Appeal No. 2006-1618
Application No. 10/046,797
examiner concludes that, in view of Makram-Ebeid, it would have been obvious
to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify Catros to
include a scale parameter to merge similar adjacent regions to aid in correctly
identifying contours [id.].
Appellant argues that there is no motivation to combine the references
[brief, page 15]. According to appellant, the examiner's stated reasoning in citing
Makram-Ebeid pertains solely to problems or concerns of Makram-Ebeid -- not
Catros. Moreover, Catros is concerned with bridging disjointed ends, not
merging regions. According to appellant, the skilled artisan would therefore not
look to Makram-Ebeid to modify Catros [brief, page 16]. The examiner responds
that applying the teachings of Makram-Ebeid to Catros would eliminate a number
of contours (interfaces, boundaries, etc.). According to the examiner, Catros'
goal of bridging contours would be more easily achieved by applying the
teachings of Makram-Ebeid by reducing the number of contours to bridge
[answer, page 13].
Appellant also argues that even if Catros and Makram-Ebeid were
properly combinable, the references still do not disclose all recited claim
limitations, namely (1) weighting the respective shortest path by gradient
calculations; (2) associating contours with a respective scale parameter; and (3)
determining a scale parameter that minimizes variances between regions defined
by the respective contours [brief, pages 18 and 19].
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