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 .
Priority
The actual filing date for the instant application is 23 Jan 24. However, the instant application requests foreign priority to application CN202110864436.5, filed 29 Jul 21. As such, the effective filing date of each of the instant application’s claims under examination may be as recent as the instant application’s actual filing date of 23 Jan 24, or potentially as early as the filing date of 29 Jul 21 (filing date of CN202110864436.5), depending on whether there is appropriate specification support for each particular claim in the earlier-filed foreign application’s specification. In the case that a prior art rejection to one or more claims made in an Office action during prosecution of the instant application includes one or more prior art references that fall somewhere between 23 Jan 24 and 29 Jul 21 (an "intervening" reference), if Applicant can specifically identify appropriate specification support for each of these claims in the earlier filed foreign application, then the Examiner may determine that one or more of these prior art rejections against one or more of these claims will need to be withdrawn.
Status of Claims
Claims 19 and 22-24 have been cancelled. Claims 10 and 21 have been amended. Claims 1-18 and 20-21 are pending and examined below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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.
Claims 1-6 and 12-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20220117662 A1 (“Babb”) in view of US 20220378526 A1 (“Balicki”).
As per Claims 1 and 12, Babb discloses a system and method comprising:
at least one storage medium including a set of instructions (¶ 83—“ a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-readable instructions may be provided in accordance with the principles described herein”) and
at least one processor configured to communicate with the at least one storage medium, wherein when executing the set of instructions (¶ 14—“an exemplary system includes a memory that stores instructions and a processor communicatively coupled to the memory and configured to execute the instructions”), the at least one processor is configured to direct the system to perform operations including:
obtaining a target model of a target device (¶ 49—“a virtual model (e.g., a 3D model) of the surgical instrument”);
determining first posture information of the target model and second posture information of an operating apparatus, wherein the target device is set on an end of the operating apparatus (¶ 40—“a position, a pose, and/or an orientation of manipulator arm 212-1 and/or a surgical instrument coupled to manipulator arm”);
Balicki teaches additional limitations not expressly disclosed by Babb, including namely generating a collision prediction between the target model and the operating apparatus based on the first posture information and the second posture information, the collision prediction indicating whether there is a space accommodating the target device during an operation of the operating apparatus (¶ 37—“the safety plane causes the robot to move in a predictable fashion to prevent robot collision”). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Babb to include the limitations as taught by Balicki to improve robotic device positioning (Balicki: ¶ 7).
As per Claims 2 and 13, Babb further discloses wherein the operating apparatus includes a mechanical arm, and the target device is set on an end of the mechanical arm (¶ 24—“manipulator arms…surgical instruments”).
As per Claims 3 and 14, Babb further discloses wherein the obtaining a target model of a target device includes:
identifying, according to a target identification of the target device, the target model of the target device from a plurality of device models stored in a storage device (¶ 49—“ a virtual model (e.g., a 3D model) of the surgical instrument may be used by system 100 to create a realistic virtual representation of the surgical instrument. Such a virtual model may be generated based on surgical instrument model data stored by storage facility”; ¶ 62—“In FIGS. 4A-9, various exemplary virtual representations of surgical instruments and predicted insertion trajectories are depicted”); and
retrieving the target model from the storage device (¶ 49—“ a virtual model (e.g., a 3D model) of the surgical instrument may be used by system 100 to create a realistic virtual representation of the surgical instrument. Such a virtual model may be generated based on surgical instrument model data stored by storage facility”).
As per Claims 4 and 15, Babb further discloses wherein the obtaining a target model of a target device includes: generating the target model of the target device in response to a model generation operation (¶ 49—“a virtual model (e.g., a 3D model) of the surgical instrument may be used by system 100 to create a realistic virtual representation of the surgical instrument”).
As per Claims 5 and 16, Babb further discloses wherein the generating the target model of the target device includes:
obtaining three-dimensional information of the target device (¶ 49—“a virtual model (e.g., a 3D model) of the surgical instrument may be used by system 100 to create a realistic virtual representation of the surgical instrument”); and
generating the target model of the target device based on the three-dimensional information (¶ 49—“a virtual model (e.g., a 3D model) of the surgical instrument may be used by system 100 to create a realistic virtual representation of the surgical instrument”).
As per Claims 6 and 17, Babb further discloses wherein the three-dimensional information of the target device is acquired by at least one of a structured-light camera, a binocular camera, or a distance measuring device (¶ 29—“user control system 204 may include a stereoscopic image viewer having two displays where stereoscopic images (e.g., 3D images) of a surgical space associated with patient 208 and generated by a stereoscopic imaging system may be viewed by surgeon”; ¶ 2—“surgical instruments typically include an imaging device (e.g., an endoscope) that captures images of a surgical space and one or more surgical tools that are manipulated by the computer-assisted surgical system to perform a surgical procedure”).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7-11, 18, 20, and 21 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BASIL T JOS whose telephone number is (571)270-5915. The examiner can normally be reached 11:00 - 8:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, THOMAS WORDEN can be reached at (571) 272-4876. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Basil T. Jos/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3658