Appeal 2007-1809
Application 09/774,013
We will sustain the Examiner’s rejection with respect to our selected
representative claim 7. Stavely’s film scanner provides dust and scratch
correction by scanning the film 300 twice. In one scan, the image to be
corrected is produced by passing conventional direct visible illumination
through the image on the film and then onto a sensor. Stavely refers to this
normal scan as “Scan A.”
The second scan in Stavely provides a defect signature (i.e., an image
of surface defects) that is produced by passing either dark- or bright-field
infrared light or dark-field visible white light through the image on the film.
Stavely refers to this scan as “Scan B.” Using this defect signature obtained
from Scan B, image processing software then suitably alters corresponding
areas in the image produced by Scan A (Stavely, col. 2, ll. 26-34; col. 4, ll.
18-31; Fig. 3).
The order of Scan A and Scan B is not important (Stavely, col. 4, ll.
24-25). Stavely further notes that the entire image may be (1) sequentially
scanned twice in two separate passes, or (2) each line may be scanned twice
on a line-by-line basis. In the latter case, defect calculations and image
processing are likewise performed on a line-by-line basis (Stavely, col. 2, ll.
43-56; col. 5, ll. 5-23 and 45-65).
Turning to representative claim 7, Stavely’s Scan B -- a scan that can
occur prior to Scan A as the Examiner indicates5 -- fully meets reading a
defective image as claimed. We also agree with the Examiner that
“preprocessing” the defective image does not preclude merely identifying
5 See Answer, at 3; see also Stavely, at col. 4, ll. 24-25 (noting the
unimportance of the order of Scan A and Scan B).
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013