Appeal 2007-2513
Application 09/785,443
Appellants contend (Br. 15 and Reply Br. 7-8) that for claims 32 and
33, Bergman "does not judge histograms based on color quantization nor
does it perform such a judgment in advance of performing a similarity
calculation." The Examiner asserts (Answer 15-16) that "based on" is not
recited in the claims and that the judging step is inherent in Bergman
because "one need[s] to know before whether or not the archived multimedia
data is compatible with the query multimedia data Q." The issues for claims
32 and 33, therefore, are whether the claims require judging based on color
quantization and whether the claimed judging step is inherent in Bergman.
As to judging histograms "based on color quantization," no such
language appears in claims 32 and 33. Therefore, we find Appellants' first
contention beyond the scope of the claims. As to whether judging is
inherent to Bergman, we agree with the Examiner that before calculating a
similarity between two histograms, a determination must be made as to
whether the histograms are comparable. Bergman inherently performs the
judging step prior to converting one histogram into another. Accordingly,
we will sustain the anticipation rejection of claims 32 and 33.
The Examiner (Answer 6) rejects claim 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103,
combining Yaung with Bergman. Appellants (Br. 15-16) merely contend
that Yaung fails to cure the alleged deficiency of Bergman as applied to
claim 6, from which claim 12 depends. As we have found no error in the
rejection of claim 6 over Bergman, we will sustain the obviousness rejection
of claim 12 over Bergman and Yaung.
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