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 .
Status of Claims
Applicant’s amendments filed 03/19/2016 have been entered. Claim 1, 2, and 5-18 are pending, claims 7-17 have been withdrawn from consideration, and claims 1, 2, 5-6, and 18 are currently under consideration for patentability under 37 CFR 1.104
Foreign Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d). The certified copies have been received.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 5, and 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hosseini et al. (U.S. 2023/0233270) in view of Duindam et al. (U.S. 2018/0153621).
With respect to claim 1, Hosseini et al. teaches a navigation system for a surgical robot, including:
an endoscope (100) configured to capture an internal image of a tissue; and
a navigation device (20) configured to:
obtain a deep information of the organization by analyzing an internal image (402-416, FIG. 13A);
determine whether a plurality of passages appear in the tissue according to the deep information (418, FIG. 13A); and
select the passage that meets a path planning setting when the passages appear in the organization (318-320, FIG. 12A, see also para [0067]).
wherein the navigation device is further configured to:
obtain a lowest grayscale value of the internal image according to the depth information (404-414);
binarize the internal image to generate a passage area and a non-passage area according to the lowest gray scale value (416);
obtain the passage area in the binarized internal image (“L” FIG. 7, 8); and
obtain a centroid of the passage area (“C” FIG. 10).
However, Hosseinin et al. does not teach a table.
With respect to claim 1, Duindam et al. teaches a navigation device configured to select a passage that meets a path planning setting, wherein the path planning setting comprises a corresponding relationship between a branch and a set passage, and the corresponding relationship is a table (FIG. 8, para [0070]).
Therefore, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify Hosseini et al. to include the table as taught by Duindam et al. because Duindam et al. teaches it is a known alternative to more advanced calculation techniques (para [0070] of Duindam et al.).
With respect to claim 2, Hosseini et al. teaches a driving mechanism (120,200, see also para [0062]) connected to the endoscope and configured to: drive the endoscope into the selected passage (320, para [0071]).
With respect to claim 5, Hosseini et al. teaches a driving mechanism (120,200, see also para [0062]) connected to the endoscope and configured to: drive the endoscope into the selected passage (320, para [0071]).
With respect to claim 6, Hosseini et al. teaches the path planning setting comprises a corresponding relationship between a branch and a set passage (para [0044],[0046],[0054]).
Claim(s) 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hosseini et al. (U.S. 2023/0233270) in view of Duindam et al. (U.S. 2018/0153621) as applied to claim 1 above and further in view of Mintz et al. (U.S. 2017/0084027).
With respect to claim 18, Hosseini et al. teaches the navigation device is further configured to obtain an edge of each passage in the internal image by analyzing the internal image when the passages appear in the tissue (para [0066]).
However, Hosseini et al. does not teach obtaining an approximate ellipse of the edge of each passage.
With respect to claim 18, Mintz et al. teaches a navigation device that is configured to obtain an edge of each passage in the internal image by analyzing the internal image when the passages appear in the tissue; and obtain an approximate ellipse of the edge of each passage (para [0135]); and superimpose the approximate ellipses on the internal images ot highlight ranges of the passages (para [0141]-[0142], FIG. 11a,b)
Therefore, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify Hosseini et al. to utilize obtaining an approximate ellipse of the edge of each passage as taught by Mintz et al. in order to provide a simplified method of determining the center (para [0135] of Mintz et al.)
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/ALEXANDRA L NEWTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3799
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