DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 04/03/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 03/06/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that the previously cited art of Omori does not teach wherein “in the bendable joint operation mode, the bendable joint operation command generator generates the bendable joint operation command to change the bending angle of the bendable joint based on the displacement of the handle, the displacement being detected by the detector, to change a position and a posture of each of the wrist joint and the surgical instrument”. Applicant cites Para. 0101-0111, specifically Para. 0101 and Para. 0110, to support the argument that the position and posture of unit 46 are kept constant, and therefore does not read on the claim limitation. However, as is stated at the beginning of Para. 0110, this constant position and posture are “at this time” of the designated procedure. Multiple paragraphs describe the adjustment of positioning and posture of joint 46 and tool 78, including Para. 0080 which states “When the wires 50a, 50b, 50c are moved back and forth upon rotation of the pulleys 48a, 48b, 48c in the connecting block 42, the pulleys in the distal-end working unit 46 are driven to rotate, causing the distal-end working unit 46 to move about three axes. The motions of the distal-end working unit 46 include angular motions about a pitch axis (distal-end joint) 74 and a yaw axis (distal-end joint) 75 and opening and closing motions of a gripper 78, for example. The gripper 78 comprises a pair of gripper arms, one or both of which are openable. The distal-end working unit 46 may be of the same mechanism as the distal-end working unit of the medical manipulator disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-061969, for example”, and Para. 0117, “Then, as shown in FIG. 15, the distal-end working unit 46 is moved forward to retract the large intestine 120 to a deeper region. At this time, in order to keep the distal-end working unit 46 and the gripped portion of the large intestine 120 oriented relatively to each other, the distal-end working unit 46 may be pushed in the direction of a coordinate axis Zt1 in the tool coordinate operation mode (see FIG. 8)”, and Fig. 8 likewise showing a positional change of unit 46 (Para. 0089, “For example, as shown in FIG. 8, according to the posture of the distal-end working unit 46 at the time, a tool coordinate system having orthogonal axes Zt.sub.0, Xt.sub.0, Yt.sub.0 (the axis Yt.sub.0 is omitted from illustration) is established, and the distal-end working unit 46 is operated based on the established tool coordinate system. The distal-end working unit 46 is moved from an imaginary-line position to a solid-line position while the gripper 78 is extending along the coordinate axis Zt.sub.0. At this time, the position of a hypothetical reference point P1 at the trocar 25 (pivot point) and the posture of the distal-end working unit 46 are kept constant”). For these reasons, the rejection to Omori is maintained, and is updated below to account for the new claim limitations.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-2 and 4-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Publication 20100262162 awarded to Omori, hereinafter Omori.
Regarding Claims 1, 5, and 6, Omori teaches a surgical operation system and method of controlling the surgical operation system (abstract), the surgical operation system comprising: an instrument manipulator (Fig. 8) including a first arm (arm 18c), a shaft (joint shaft 44), a bendable joint (first joint 58), a wrist joint (Fig. 8, distal-end working unit 46, Para. 0074, Accordingly, the distal-end working unit 46 can be bent into an orientation not parallel to the longitudinal axis of the joint shaft 44”), and a surgical instrument (gripper 78) that are connected and arranged in this order from a proximal end portion toward a distal end portion of the instrument manipulator (Fig. 8) further including a first arm driver that drives the first arm based on a command that specifies a motion of the first arm (manipulator 10c, “Para. 0063, “As shown in FIG. 2, the manipulator 10c is removably mounted on a slider 40, which is disposed on the distal end of the robot arm 18c”), a wrist joint driver (unnumbered first actuator) that drives the wrist joint based on a command that specifies a target position of the wrist joint (Para. 0063, “The motors 30a through 30c (first actuator) serve to actuate a distal-end working unit 46”), and a bendable joint driver (unnumbered second actuator) that drives the bendable joint based on a bendable joint operation command that specifies a target bending angle of the bendable joint (Para. 0063, “the motors 30d through 30g (second actuator) serve to actuate a first intermediate joint 58 and a second intermediate joint 60”); a master console including a base (console 20), a hand control unit including a handle that is displaceable relative to the base (Para. 0085, “The joysticks 80a, 80b, 80c are basically identical in structure to each other, and have a handle grip 100 which is gripped by a human hand, a trigger lever 102 which is pushed and pulled mainly by an index finger and a middle finger, and a composite input pad 104 which is gripped mainly by a thumb”) and a detector that detects a displacement of the handle (Para. 0087, “In the absolute coordinate operation mode, the manipulator 10c coacts with the robot arm 18c (including the slide mechanism 26) connected thereto based on an input action of the joystick 80c. At this time, the position of the distal-end working unit 46 is set based on absolute coordinates depending on the movement of the handle grip 100, and the orientation of the distal-end working unit 46 is set based on input actions of the see-saw switches 104a, 104b”), and an operation mode selection inputter that receives an operation of inputting a selection command to select one operation mode from operation modes including a normal operation mode and a bendable joint operation mode (Para. 0025, “The medical robot system may further include a switch for selectively enabling and disabling the rotary input means. The switch prevents the intermediate joint from being operated carelessly”); and a controller including an operation mode setter that sets the operation mode to the one operation mode corresponding to the selection command (Para. 0057, “The console 20 is not required to control the medical robot system 12 in its entirety, but the robot arms 18a through 18d may be feedback-controlled by internal controllers combined with the medical robot system 12. The robot arms 18a through 18c may be actuated under the control of the console 20 for being operated according to automatic programmed operations or may be manually actuated by respective joysticks 80a, 80b, 80c on the console 20. The robot arms 18a through 18d also may be actuated through a combination of automatic programmed operations and manually controlled operations”), a normal operation command generator that generates a normal operation command including the command that specifies the motion of the first arm and the command that specifies the target position of the wrist joint (Para. 0057), and a bendable joint operation command generator that generates the bendable joint operation command (Para. 0081, “Since the first intermediate joint 58, the second intermediate joint 60, the pitch axis 74, the yaw axis 75, and the gripper 78 can possibly cause a mutual interference, the console 20 calculates an amount of interference and controls the wires 50a through 50g to move back and forth to compensate for an interfering movement. In other words, the console 20 controls the wires 50a through 50g such that when it moves one of the movable members, it prevents the other from unnecessarily moving due to such an interfering movement”), wherein in the normal operation mode, the normal operation command generator calculates a target position and a target posture of the surgical instrument based on the displacement of the handle, the displacement being detected by the detector, and generates the normal operation command to operate the first arm and the wrist joint such that the surgical instrument takes the calculated target posture at the calculated target position (Para. 0057), and in the bendable joint operation mode, the bendable joint operation command generator generates the bendable joint operation command to change the bending angle of the bendable joint based on the displacement of the handle, the displacement being detected by the detector (Para. 0081) to change a position (Para. 0089, “For example, as shown in FIG. 8, according to the posture of the distal-end working unit 46 at the time, a tool coordinate system having orthogonal axes Zt.sub.0, Xt.sub.0, Yt.sub.0 (the axis Yt.sub.0 is omitted from illustration) is established, and the distal-end working unit 46 is operated based on the established tool coordinate system. The distal-end working unit 46 is moved from an imaginary-line position to a solid-line position while the gripper 78 is extending along the coordinate axis Zt.sub.0. At this time, the position of a hypothetical reference point P1 at the trocar 25 (pivot point) and the posture of the distal-end working unit 46 are kept constant”) and a posture of each of the wrist joint and the surgical instrument (Para. 0080, ““When the wires 50a, 50b, 50c are moved back and forth upon rotation of the pulleys 48a, 48b, 48c in the connecting block 42, the pulleys in the distal-end working unit 46 are driven to rotate, causing the distal-end working unit 46 to move about three axes. The motions of the distal-end working unit 46 include angular motions about a pitch axis (distal-end joint) 74 and a yaw axis (distal-end joint) 75 and opening and closing motions of a gripper 78, for example. The gripper 78 comprises a pair of gripper arms, one or both of which are openable. The distal-end working unit 46 may be of the same mechanism as the distal-end working unit of the medical manipulator disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-061969, for example””).
Regarding Claim 2, Omori teaches the surgical operation system according to Claim 1, wherein the wrist joint is a joint with two degrees of freedom or three degrees of freedom (Para. 0080, “The motions of the distal-end working unit 46 include angular motions about a pitch axis (distal-end joint) 74 and a yaw axis (distal-end joint)”).
Regarding Claim 4, Omori teaches the surgical operation system according the Claim 3, wherein the normal operation command generator generates the normal operation command to control a position and a posture of the surgical instrument while keeping a center axis of the shaft passing through a preset remote center (Para. 0089).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jess Mullins whose telephone number is (571)-272-8977. The examiner can normally be reached between the hours of 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PST M-F.
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/JLM/
Examiner, Art Unit 3792
/JAMES M KISH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3792