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 .
In response to the restriction requirement, Applicant elected claims 1, 3-5, 10, 12-14, and 19 for further examination. As a result, all other claims are withdrawn from further prosecution.
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, 3, 5, 10, 12, 14, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Levenson (WO 2006081547) in view of Bamford (WO 2012152693).
Regarding to claims 1, 10, 19:
Levenson discloses a dye image acquisition method comprising:
irradiating a sample with each of excitation light beams having C (C is an integer of 2 or more) wavelength distributions and acquiring the C fluorescence images each including N (N is an integer of 2 or more) pixels (page 12, lines 9-10: Light source 102 can provide light 122 having a broad distribution of spectral wavelength components. Page 12, lines 16-18: a similar set of spectrally-resolved images can be recorded by employing a light source 102 having multiple source elements generating light of different wavelengths. Page 12, lines 29-31: Collecting multiple, spectrally-resolved images of sample 108 is an “image stack” where each image in the stack is a two-dimensional image corresponding to a particular wavelength); and
performing unmixing on the C fluorescence images to generate K (K is an integer of 2 or more and C or less) dye images indicating a distribution for each K dyes (page 14, lines 18-27: Images of the specimen under illumination will contain spectral contributions from each of the dyes. Spectral unmixing decomposes one or more images that include contributions from multiple spectral sources into a set of component images. If the sample includes three different dyes, then an image of the sample can be separated into three unmixed images, each reflects contributions principally from only one of the dyes).
Levenson however does not teach clustering the N pixels into L (L is an integer of 2 or more and N-1 or less) pixel groups based on intensity values of respective pixels of the C fluorescence images, and generating L cluster matrices in which the C fluorescence images are arranged for each of the clustered pixel groups; calculating statistical values of the intensity values of the pixel groups configuring the C fluorescence images for each of the L cluster matrices; and performing unmixing on the C fluorescence images by using the statistical values of the C fluorescence images for each of the L cluster matrices.
Bamford discloses a method and system for spectral demultiplexing of fluorescent species comprising clustering pixels into pixel groups based on intensity values to generate cluster matrices indicating statistical values of the intensity values to perform unmixing on the fluorescence images accordingly (page 15, lines 9-12).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Leveson’s method to include clustering pixels based on intensity values to increase adaptability and stability, the signal-to-noise ratio at the output of the overall measurement system as taught by Bamford (page 11, lines 15-17).
Regarding to claims 3, 12: further comprising acquiring wavelength information related to a fluorescence wavelength corresponding to each pixel of the fluorescence image, wherein in the clustering, the N pixels are clustered based on the wavelength information corresponding to each pixel (Bamford: page 15, lines 9-13: Operating on a cluster of pixels by obtaining the average spectral distribution of the pixel group).
Regarding to claims 5, 14: Wherein in the acquiring of the wavelength information acquisition step, the sample is irradiated with excitation light of any wavelength distribution of the C wavelength distributions, fluorescence from the sample is imaged with a camera capable of detecting at least two or more fluorescence wavelengths to acquire a fluorescence image, and the wavelength information is acquired based on the fluorescence image (Levenson: FIG. 1, element 112: Detector 112).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 and 13 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The primary reasons for the indication of the allowability of the claim is the inclusions therein, in combination as currently claimed, of the limitation that wherein in the acquiring of the wavelength information acquisition step, the sample is irradiated with excitation light of any wavelength distribution of the C wavelength distributions, fluorescence from the sample is separated via a wavelength information acquisition optical system that separates fluorescence with different wavelength characteristics, the separated fluorescence is respectively imaged to acquire a plurality of separated fluorescence images, and the wavelength information is acquired based on the plurality of separated fluorescence images is neither disclosed nor taught by the cited prior art of record, alone or in combination.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LAM S NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-2151.
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/LAM S NGUYEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2853
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