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 .
Election/Restrictions
Claims , previously withdrawn from consideration as a result of a restriction requirement, are hereby rejoined and fully examined for patentability under 37 CFR 1.104.
Because all claims previously withdrawn from consideration under 37 CFR 1.142 have been rejoined, the restriction requirement as set forth in the Office action mailed on November 13th, 2025 is hereby withdrawn. In view of the withdrawal of the restriction requirement as to the rejoined inventions, applicant(s) are advised that if any claim presented in a divisional application is anticipated by, or includes all the limitations of, a claim that is allowable in the present application, such claim may be subject to provisional statutory and/or nonstatutory double patenting rejections over the claims of the instant application. Once the restriction requirement is withdrawn, the provisions of 35 U.S.C. 121 are no longer applicable. See In re Ziegler, 443 F.2d 1211, 1215, 170 USPQ 129, 131-32 (CCPA 1971). See also MPEP § 804.01.
Claim Status
Claims 1-17 were pending for examination in Application No. 18/288,776 filed October 27th, 2023. In the remarks and amendments filed April 13th, 2026, claims 1, 6, 8-9, 12, and 14-17 are amended, claim 11 is cancelled, and claims 18-19 are added. Claims 14-17, which were previously withdrawn due to being non-elected in a lack of unity restriction, are no longer withdrawn due to the restriction being withdrawn. Accordingly, claims 1-10 and 12-19 are currently pending for examination in the application.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendments filed April 13th, 2026, have overcome the 112(b) rejection previously set forth in the Non-Final Office Action mailed November 13th, 2025. Accordingly, the 112(b) rejection is withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed April 13th, 2026, have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The examiner respectfully disagrees with applicant’s assertion that Deck teaches away from “using the calibration capacities for “evaluating a positioning accuracy of the movable table in an x/y plane”” (pg. 7 of Applicant’s Remarks). Although Deck does teach a magnification measurement system, Deck also uses the calibration element to verify microscope stage position accuracy in the XY plane (paras. [0071-0072] and Figs. 15A and 15B of Deck).
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It is critical for a microscope’s stage to be “precisely calibrated” either manually or automatically in order for a specimen to be correctly viewed under the microscope, and calibration can be done frequently due to outside factors acting on the microscope such as temperature or physical movement. Therefore, it would have been obvious for Deck to need a precisely calibrated microscope stage, but also a way to calibrate the stage in the first place.
The examiner respectfully disagrees with applicant’s assertion that Atcheson does not apply to the field of digital microscopy, or that Atcheson is based on impermissible hindsight (pg. 7 of Applicant’s Remarks). Atcheson “present[s] a self-identifying marker pattern for camera calibration” (Abstract), which is a needed technique in digital microscopy, as digital microscopy uses a digital camera instead of the objective and ocular lenses of an optical microscope to view specimen. With Atcheson’s technique of camera calibration using fiducial markers in mind, it would thus been obvious to combine Atcheson with Deck, as Deck teaches a digital microscope (that uses a “video camera”, Para. [0005]) with a “calibration element comprising a substantially non-periodic pattern of features that exhibit contrast when illuminated by a light beam” (para. [0014]), where the “calibration element” is not unlike Atcheson’s “fiducial markers” or applicant’s “photo mask”.
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) 1-7, 9, 14-15, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Deck et al. (US-20180130233-A1), and further in view of Atcheson et al., "CALTag: High Precision Fiducial Markers for Camera Calibration", 15th International Workshop on Vision, Modeling and Visualization, 2010, hereinafter referred to as Atcheson.
Regarding claim 1, Deck teaches:
A method for optically evaluating an operating accuracy of a digital microscope (“enables calibration of an analytical microscope across a broad range of magnification levels,” Para [0037]), the method comprising:
placing a photo mask (“calibration element”) on a movable table of the digital microscope (“a calibration element disposed on the microscope stage,” Para [0014]),
taking a digital image of a portion of the photo mask (“region of calibration element”) with a digital camera of the digital microscope (“an image (e.g. optical or analytical) is acquired of pattern 230 from a region of calibration element,” Para [0069]),
wherein at least the steps of taking a digital image of a portion of the photo mask, determining a relative position of the orthogonal grid of line structures, analyzing at least one unique subfield identifier, and determining an absolute position within the photo mask for a specific location within the digital image (these steps are more specifically taught by Atcheson, as later described below) are carried out in a plurality of iterations for a plurality of different evaluation scenarios (Fig. 15B, where a calibration element is used to detect positional drift in the stage of a microscope as the stage moves incrementally in a “plurality of different evaluation scenarios”, the x-axis of the graph representing the x-axis of the stage, and the y-axis of the graph representing the y-axis of the stage in the XY plane. Also see paras. [0071-0072] for more information on the calibration element being used to detect positional drift),
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wherein the plurality of different evaluation scenarios are different operating positions of the movable table (Fig. 15B, each point on the graph represents a different operating position of the microscope stage); and
wherein the method comprises evaluating a positioning accuracy of the movable table in an x/y plane (Fig. 15A and 15B, where the measurement units of microns and pixels indicate a flat coordinate system) using respective absolute positions within the photo mask (“the use of calibration element 220 is complementary to the use of a position encoder, and in some embodiments could be used as a replacement of the position encoder,” Para [0072], where the position encoder tracks the location of the stage of the microscope in the XY plane), determined in the plurality of different evaluation scenarios (Fig. 15B, each data point represents an evaluation scenario).
Deck is not relied upon to teach the following limitations as further claimed. Atcheson, however, further describes:
the photo mask comprising an orthogonal grid of line structures (Fig. 3, labeled “1” in the top left corner),
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wherein the orthogonal grid of line structures forms a two-dimensional array of photo mask subfields (Fig. 3, image “1” is a grid containing “subfields”) and wherein at least a subset of the two-dimensional array of photo mask subfields are provided with unique subfield identifiers (Fig. 1, far right image containing “fiducial markers”);
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determining a relative position of the orthogonal grid of line structures in the digital image of the portion of the photo mask (Fig. 3, “4”, corners of the grid of line structures are marked);
analyzing at least one unique subfield identifier in the digital image of the portion of the photo mask (Fig. 3, “5”, and Section 3.2.5, Marker validation, “read the binary code depicted in the middle of the marker”); and
on the basis of said relative position of the orthogonal grid of line structures and said at least one unique subfield identifier, analyzed in the digital image of the portion of the photo mask (Fig. 3, steps “1” through “5”), determining an absolute position within the photo mask for a specific location within the digital image (Fig. 3, “5”, and Section 3.2.5, “Given a uniform square, the positions ci of the code dots inside this square are known by construction of the markers. We must therefore map a unit square to the region’s corners and then sample the image at the points dictated by applying the same mapping to the ci,”).
Atcheson is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the same field of camera calibration using fiducial markers on a checkerboard. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to have incorporated the teachings of Atcheson into Deck for the benefit of more accurate camera calibration that results in less false positives or missed points.
Regarding claim 2, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Deck in view of Atcheson teaches the method of claim 1, and Atcheson further teaches wherein each of the two-dimensional array of photo mask subfields is provided with a unique subfield identifier (Fig. 3, top left image, each square has a fiducial marker).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to have incorporated the teachings of Atcheson into Deck for the benefit of more accurate camera calibration that results in less false positives or missed points.
Regarding claim 3, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Deck in view of Atcheson teaches the method of claim 1, and Atcheson further teaches wherein the unique subfield identifiers comprise one-dimensional bar code identifiers or matrix bar code identifiers or alphanumerical identifiers (Fig. 3, top left image, fiducial markers are matrix bar code identifiers).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to have incorporated the teachings of Atcheson into Deck for the benefit of more accurate camera calibration that results in less false positives or missed points.
Regarding claim 4, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Deck in view of Atcheson teaches the method of claim 1, and Atcheson further teaches wherein said determining of the relative position of the orthogonal grid of line structures comprises edge detection (“using a Sobel filter”) with respect to at least part of the orthogonal grid of line structures in the digital image of the portion of the photo mask (Section 3.2.1, “the input image is converted to grayscale, and its edges are detected using a Sobel filter” and Fig. 3, “1” image).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to have incorporated the teachings of Atcheson into Deck for the benefit of more accurate camera calibration that results in less false positives or missed points.
Regarding claim 5, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Deck in view of Atcheson teaches the method of claim 1, and Atcheson further teaches wherein said determining of the relative position of the orthogonal grid of line structures comprises sub-pixel edge detection (“subpixel saddle point finders”) in the digital image of the portion of the photo mask (Section 1, “CALTag (“CALibration Tags”) that provides accurate localization of calibration points using subpixel saddle point finders”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to have incorporated the teachings of Atcheson into Deck for the benefit of more accurate camera calibration that results in less false positives or missed points.
Regarding claim 6, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Deck in view of Atcheson teaches the method of claim 1, and Atcheson further teaches, wherein said determining of the relative position of the orthogonal grid of line structures comprises analyzing a section of the digital image that contains one photomask subfield or nine phot mask subfields or twenty-five photo mask subfields or forty-nine photo mask subfields or eighty-one photo mask subfields, (Fig. 7, top right and bottom right images show a photo mask with 81 subfields).
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It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to have incorporated the teachings of Atcheson into Deck for the benefit of more accurate camera calibration that results in less false positives or missed points.
Regarding claim 7, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Deck in view of Atcheson teaches the method of claim 1, and Deck further teaches wherein the photo mask (“calibration element”) is a chrome-coated photo mask (“pattern 230 of calibration element 220 can be fabricated as a pattern of black-chrome-coated features on fused silica,” Para [0052]).
Regarding claim 9, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Deck in view of Atcheson teaches the method of claim 1, and Deck further teaches wherein the method further comprises using said absolute position within the photo mask (“on a correlation of the non-periodic pattern in the first image and the second image”), determined for the specific location within the digital image, for at least one of:
evaluating a distance accuracy between the movable table and the digital camera in a z-direction;
evaluating a position accuracy of an optical z-axis from the movable table to the digital camera with respect to the x/y plane;
evaluating a pixel density of the digital camera;
evaluating a magnification accuracy of the digital microscope (“determining a magnification level of an objective lens that acquired the first image and the second image based on a correlation of the non-periodic pattern in the first image and the second image,” Para [0015]);
evaluating a temperature sensitivity of the digital microscope;
evaluating a distortion of the digital microscope.
Regarding claim 14, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Deck in view of Atcheson teaches the method of claim 1, and the combination further teaches:
wherein the photo mask has light transmissive portions (Deck, “features that reflect”) and light blocking portions (Deck, “features that absorb”), and wherein the light transmissive portions and the light blocking portions (Deck, “the non-periodic multidimensional pattern of calibration element 220 include features that reflect both a visible light beam and an analytical light beam (e.g. metal-coated features), as well as features that absorb both a visible light beam and an analytical light beam,” Para [0052]) form the orthogonal grid of line structures (Atcheson, Fig. 3, labeled “1” in the top left corner) and the unique subfield identifiers (Atcheson, Fig. 3, image “1” is a grid containing “subfields”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to have incorporated the teachings of Atcheson into Deck for the benefit of more accurate camera calibration that results in less false positives or missed points.
Claim 15 is a method claim that corresponds to method claim 7. Therefore, the rejection of claim 7 applies to claim 15.
Regarding claim 18, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Deck in view of Atcheson teaches the method of claim 1, and Atcheson further teaches:
wherein said determining of the relative position of the orthogonal grid of line structures comprises analyzing a section of the digital image that contains a 1x1 window of photomask subfields or a 3x3 window of photo mask subfields or a 5x5 window of photo mask subfields of a 7x7 window of photo mask subfields or a 9x9 window of photo mask subfields (Fig. 7, top right and bottom right images show a photo mask that is a 9x9 grid with 81 subfields).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to have incorporated the teachings of Atcheson into Deck for the benefit of more accurate camera calibration that results in less false positives or missed points.
Claim(s) 8, 16-17, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Deck et al. (US-20180130233-A1), and further in view of Atcheson et al., "CALTag: High Precision Fiducial Markers for Camera Calibration", 15th International Workshop on Vision, Modeling and Visualization, 2010, hereinafter referred to as Atcheson, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Benesch-Lee et al., "Multilayer photolithography with manual photomask alignment ", Chips and Tips, RSC Internet Services, hereinafter referred to as Benesch-Lee.
Regarding claim 8, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Deck in view of Atcheson teaches the method of claim 1, but fails to teach the following limitations as further claimed. Benesch-Lee, however, further teaches wherein the photo mask has production tolerances of less than 100 nm (Conclusion, “We achieved repeatable accuracy of <100um and as good as 50 um” for “manual alignment of multiple transparency photomasks”).
Benesch-Lee is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the field of photomask alignment. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the teachings of Benesch-Lee into Deck and Atcheson for the benefit of more accurate camera calibration that results in less false positives or missed points.
Claim 16 is a method claim that corresponds to method claim 8. Therefore, the rejection of claim 8 applies to claim 16.
Regarding claim 17, the rejection of claim 16 is incorporated herein. Deck in view of Atcheson and Benesch-Lee teach the method of claim 16. In view of this combination, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have the “photo mask ha[ve] production tolerances of less than 50 nm”, as Benesch-Lee teaches achieving “as good as 50 um” for “manual alignment of multiple transparency photomasks” (Conclusion). There is no discernable difference between a production tolerance of 49 um vs. 50 um, and in general, lower production tolerances are favored when manufacturing photo masks (or any manufactured component). Therefore, it would have been obvious to have a production tolerance of less than 50 um for the benefit of highly precise and accurate microscope calibration.
Claim 19 is a method claim that corresponds to method claim 17. Therefore, the rejection of claim 17 applies to claim 19.
Claim(s) 10 and 12-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Deck et al. (US-20180130233-A1), and further in view of Atcheson et al., "CALTag: High Precision Fiducial Markers for Camera Calibration", 15th International Workshop on Vision, Modeling and Visualization, 2010, hereinafter referred to as Atcheson, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Steele (US-20050178976-A1).
Regarding claim 10, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Deck in view of Atcheson teach the method of claim 1, but fail to teach the following limitations as further claimed. Steele, however, further teaches:
determining an operating position (“position”) of the movable table (“For each new position the image analysis software detects the intersection and calculates the corresponding image co-ordinates relative to the reference position. The calculated image co-ordinates are representative of a positioning error, and hence for each position the positioning error can be determined, Para [0056]) using said absolute position within the photo mask (“detects the intersection and calculates the corresponding image co-ordinates relative to the reference position”), determined for the specific location within the digital image (“detects the intersection and calculates the corresponding image co-ordinates relative to the reference position”),
and comparing said operating position with an expected position of the movable table, as expected from a controlled mechanical positioning of the movable table via a table drive assembly (“the data stored in the memory device 28 includes a table of errors representing the discrepancies between the real position as indicated by stage co-ordinates and the position indicated by the motor co-ordinates,” Para [0023]) or as expected from at least one length measurement system of the moveable table.
Steele is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of microscope alignment using grid-like templates. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the teachings of Steele into Deck and Atcheson for the benefit of more accurate camera calibration that results in less false positives or missed points.
Regarding claim 12, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Deck in view of Atcheson teach the method of claim 1, and Steele further teaches: determining an offset map (“table of errors”) between a plurality of operating positions of the movable table (“motor co-ordinates”) and a plurality of expected positions (“stage co-ordinates”) of the movable table (“the data stored in the memory device 28 includes a table of errors representing the discrepancies between the real position as indicated by stage co-ordinates and the position indicated by the motor co-ordinates,” Para [0023]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the teachings of Steele into Deck and Atcheson for the benefit of more accurate camera calibration that results in less false positives or missed points.
Regarding claim 13, the rejection of claim 12 is incorporated herein. Deck in view of Atcheson and Steele teach the method of claim 12, and Steele further teaches: performing a compensated control of the moveable table by controlling a table drive assembly, taking into account the offset map (“the application software accesses the stage specific data contained in the error table and compensates for any positioning errors specific to the stage in which the memory device 28 is located,” Para [0061]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the teachings of Steele into Deck and Atcheson for the benefit of more accurate camera calibration that results in less false positives or missed points.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Sakamoto et al. (US-20180373015-A1) teaches a method for determining a 3D position of a specimen on a microscope.
Jäckel et al. (US-20170269347-A1) teaches a method for calibrating a microscope using as lithographic mask.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RACHEL A OMETZ whose telephone number is (571)272-2535. The examiner can normally be reached 6:45am-4:00pm ET Monday-Thursday, 6:45am-1:00pm ET every other Friday.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vu Le can be reached at 571-272-7332. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Rachel Anne Ometz/Examiner, Art Unit 2668 4/29/26
Rachel.ometz@uspto.gov
/VU LE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2668
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