DETAILED ACTION
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
1- 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 01/27/2026 has been entered.
Amendment
2- The Request for Continued Examination amendment has been entered and fully considered. Claims 1-14 remain pending in the application, where the independent claims have been amended.
Response to Arguments
3- Applicant’s amendments and their corresponding arguments, with respect to the rejection of the pending claims under 102 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn.
However, upon further consideration, a new ground of rejection, based on the change of scope of the claimed invention, is made here over Amthor in view of Polchin et al. PGPUB 2023/0390021.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
4- 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 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 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 of this title, 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
In addition, the functional recitation in the claims (e.g. "configured to" or "adapted to" or the like) that does not limit a claim limitation to a particular structure does not limit the scope of the claim. It has been held that the recitation that an element is "adapted to", "configured to", "designed to", or "operable to" perform a function is not a positive limitation but only requires the ability to so perform and may not constitute a limitation in any patentable sense. In re Hutchinson, 69 USPQ 139. (See MPEP 2111.04).
Also, it should be noted that it has been held that a recitation with respect to the manner in which a claimed device is intended to be employed does not differentiate the claimed device from a prior art apparatus satisfying the claimed structural limitations Ex-parte Masham 2 USPQ2d 1647 1987).
The claimed system in the instant application is capable of performing the claimed functionality, as is the prior art used in the present office action. The Examiner notes that where the patent office has reason to believe that a functional limitation asserted to be critical for establishing novelty in the claimed subject matter may, in fact, be an inherent characteristic of the prior art, it possesses the authority to require the applicant to prove that the subject matter shown to be in the prior art does not possess the characteristic relied on. In re Swinehart and sfiligoj, 169 USPQ 226 (C.C.P.A. 1971).
5- Claims 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Amthor et al. (DE 102019114117) in view of Polchin et al. (PGPUB 2023/0390021).
As to amended claims 14, 1, 12, Amthor teaches a medical microscope arrangement, and its method of calibrating (Abstract, Figs. 1-6; system 200, calibration system 500/600, and method steps 100/400), comprising: a medical microscope (¶ 73-75) with storable calibration data (storage system 218) and a data processing device (214/222 and/or 500/600) comprising a computing device and a memory (memory 218/608 and processor in 600, both necessary for the computing steps as cited in ¶ 52), the data processing device being configured to execute instructions stored on the memory to: following an interchange and/or a misalignment of at least one component of the medical microscope, identify the interchanged and/or misaligned at least one component and/or to receive identifying information in relation to the interchanged and/or misaligned at least one component, determine required adjustment measures and/or calibration measures in automated fashion using the identified at least one interchanged and/or misaligned component as a starting point (¶ 7, 28, 36; identification of an alignment not ensured, i.e. misalignment, or of an inserted element, i.e. interchange, ¶ 17, 19-22, 28, 73 for ex., and the need for a correction/calibration of the system. ¶ 4, 20, 80 for ex. explicitly disclose detection of misaligned elements of the microscope, e.g. camera or support, and the need to align them with the use of an alignment reference sample. ¶ 20, 28, 31 clearly cite automating steps of the alignment (see also claim 9 hereunder)), and cause the determined required adjustment measures and/or calibration measures to be carried out and (claim 12) further comprising collecting and/or recording data for anticipatory servicing in the medical microscope, with data for determining and/or optimizing the determination of the adjustment measures and/or calibration measures being evaluated, said data having been collected before, during and/or after the interchange and/or the misalignment of the at least one component (¶ 6-7, 19-20, 50, 80-81, 85-88).
Amthor does not teach expressly the at least one component being at least one of an optical system for imaging a capture region, one or more mirrors and/or one or more lenses of the optical system, a stereo camera system, or one or more cameras of the stereo camera system, even though one PHOSITA would find it obvious to consider any component of the microscope similarly to the calibration sample 204, and their risk of accidental or systemic errors at changed and/or accidently misaligned.
However, in a similar field of endeavor, Polchin teaches a degradation correction for surgical apparatuses and procedures (Abstract and Figs. 1-14) using a microscope (¶ 8-9, 61-63, 69-70, 87 for ex.) wherein using images from a camera determining a shift in registration or misalignment and automatically correct the misalignment (¶ 38); the misalignment being due to a movement of the microscope reference frame (¶ 61).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the instant application to use the apparatus/method of Amthor in view of Polchin’s suggestions so that an automatic detection and correction of a misalignment of at least one microscope component wherein the at least one component being at least one of an optical system for imaging a capture region, one or more mirrors and/or one or more lenses of the optical system, a stereo camera system, or one or more cameras of the stereo camera system; with the advantage of effectively optimizing the imaging of the patient region.
Moreover, Amthor teaches:
(claim 2) wherein a calibration object (204) with two-dimensional features and/or three-dimensional features (features 302-304-306-308-310-312-314) is used to carry out the adjustment measures and/or calibration measures and said calibration object is arranged in a capture region of the medical microscope (Fig. 3 and ¶ 77-82).
(claim 3) wherein the identifying the interchanged and/or misaligned at least one component is implemented at least partially manually, with at least one information item identifying the at least one interchanged and/or misaligned component being collected by way of a manual input (¶ 64, 75).
(claim 4) wherein the identifying of the interchanged and/or misaligned at least one component is implemented at least partially in automated fashion, with at least one information item identifying the at least one interchanged and/or misaligned component being read and/or retrieved out of the interchanged and/or misaligned component and/or from at least one controller of the medical microscope and/or from a service database (¶ 64, 75).
(claims 5-6) wherein the required adjustment measures and/or calibration measures are at least partially determined by a lookup table, with adjustment measures and/or calibration measures that are required in each case following the interchange and/or misalignment being stored in the lookup table for interchangeable and/or adjustable components of the medical microscope; (claim 6) wherein the required adjustment measures and/or calibration measures are at least partially retrieved from a database, with adjustment measures and/or calibration measures that are required in each case following the interchange and/or misalignment being stored in the database for interchangeable and/or adjustable components of the medical microscope.
(¶ 66-69).
(claim 7) wherein the required adjustment measures and/or calibration measures are at least partially determined by a trained artificial intelligence method (¶ 66-70).
(claim 8) further comprising displaying the determined required adjustment measures and/or calibration measures on a display device (¶ 73, 75; display 620).
(claim 9) wherein at least some of the determined required calibration measures are performed in automated fashion (¶ 20, 28, 31, 63-64, 75 for ex.)
(claim 10) wherein at least one calibration object is arranged in automated fashion in a capture region by an actuator system in order to carry out the determined required adjustment measures and/or calibration measures and/or wherein the medical microscope is controlled so that a capture region of the medical microscope captures at least one calibration object in order to carry out the determined required adjustment measures and/or calibration measures (see rejection of claims 1-2, 7, 9).
(claim 11) wherein the required adjustment measures and/or calibration measures are combined and/or optimized with one another in the case of a plurality of interchanged and/or misaligned components, in order to minimize a number and/or a scope of the measures (¶ 2, 50; parallelization of data processing for optimization purposes).
(claim 13) further comprising capturing a respective state of the medical microscope before and after the interchange and/or misalignment, with associated image representations of at least one calibration object being captured by at least one camera of the medical microscope and with the required adjustment measures and/or calibration measures being determined by a trained artificial intelligence method, with the states captured before and after the interchange and/or the misalignment and the associated captured image representations being taken into account (see rejection of claims 1-2, 5-7, 12).
Conclusion
The examiner has pointed out particular references contained in the prior art of record in the body of this action for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. Applicant should consider the entire prior art as applicable as to the limitations of the claims. It is respectfully requested from the applicant, in preparing the response, to consider fully the entire references as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMED K AMARA whose telephone number is (571)272-7847. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday: 9:00-17:00.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Tarifur Chowdhury can be reached on (571-272-2287. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Mohamed K AMARA/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2877