DETAILED ACTION
1. This is a first Office action in response to application no. 18/716,857 filed on June 5th 2024, in which claims 1-12 are presented for examination.
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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Claims 1, 3, 5-6, 8, 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujimoto et al. (US Patent Application Publication no. 2018/0259762) in view of Fukushima et al. (US Patent no. 6,477,204).
Regarding claim 1, Fujimoto discloses a microscope system comprising: a microscope configured to acquire an image of a specimen on a focal plane (See Fujimoto Abstract, [0012]); an imaging unit configured to image the image acquired by the microscope (See Fujimoto [0012]); a focal plane moving mechanism configured to move the focal plane in an optical axis direction of the microscope (See Fujimoto [0012], [0052] and [0057]); a compression unit configured to compress image data pieces of a plurality of the images acquired by the imaging unit to generate compressed image data (See Fujimoto [0109] and[0110]); and a control unit configured to transmit, to the focal plane moving mechanism, a focal plane control signal to move the focal plane to a predetermined focal coordinate (See Fujimoto [0023], [0055] “Further, the user input device may be configured to control other components of the invention including imaging, recording, and other general functions of the entire apparatus.”), transmit, to the imaging unit, a plurality of imaging timing signals specifying timing of imaging a plurality of the images (See Fujimoto [0112] “ This distortion can be calculated and potentially corrected if position data is acquired more than one time per image because the difference in position at two points in time defines the translation over that period of time.”).
It is noted that Fujimoto is silent about transmitting, to the compression unit, layer count data indicating the number of the plurality of imaging timing signals, wherein the compression unit executes an error process when the compression unit has not received the image data pieces as many as an imaging count based on the layer count data within a predetermined time.
However, Fukushima teaches transmitting, to the compression unit, layer count data indicating the number of the plurality of imaging timing signals, wherein the compression unit executes an error process when the compression unit has not received the image data pieces as many as an imaging count based on the layer count data within a predetermined time (See Fukushima col. 18, lines 50-67, col. 19, lines 1-8 “streams of MPEG-encoded video image data transmitted in conjunction with the reference time information, it may be constructed by provided with the n reference time information detectors for detecting the reference time information contained in the n streams… for counting the clock from the clock generator, which count is corrected by the indication from the reference time information detector, at least one counter for counting the clock from the clock generator, which is able to correct the clock frequency).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying Fukushima to incorporate Fukushima’s teachings to transmit, to the compression unit, layer count data indicating the number of the plurality of imaging timing signals, wherein the compression unit executes an error process when the compression unit has not received the image data pieces as many as an imaging count based on the layer count data within a predetermined time. The motivation for performing such a modification in Fujimoto is to decode the image according to the imaging count of the video image signal while synchronizing the video image signal with the timing, thereby correcting the counts for the encoder ((See Fukushima col. 3, lines 16-22).
As per claim 6, Fujimoto discloses a data processing method comprising: forming, in an imaging unit by a microscope (See Fujimoto [0012]), an image of a specimen on a focal plane (See Fujimoto Abstract, [0012]); moving the focal plane to a predetermined focal coordinate along an optical axis direction of the microscope (See Fujimoto [0012], [0052] and [0057]); imaging the image by the imaging unit based on an imaging timing signal (See Fujimoto [0052] and [0110]).
It is noted that Fujimoto is silent about transmitting, to a compression unit, layer count data indicating the number of the imaging timing signal; compressing, by the compression unit, image data pieces of the images imaged by the imaging unit to generate compressed image data; and executing an error process by the compression unit when the compression unit has not been received the image data pieces as many as the number based on the layer count data within a predetermined time.
However, Fukushima teaches transmitting, to a compression unit, layer count data indicating the number of the imaging timing signal; compressing, by the compression unit, image data pieces of the images imaged by the imaging unit to generate compressed image data; and executing an error process by the compression unit when the compression unit has not been received the image data pieces as many as the number based on the layer count data within a predetermined time (See Fukushima col. 18, lines 50-67, col. 19).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying Fukushima to incorporate Fukushima’s teachings of transmitting, to a compression unit, layer count data indicating the number of the imaging timing signal; compressing, by the compression unit, image data pieces of the images imaged by the imaging unit to generate compressed image data; and executing an error process by the compression unit when the compression unit has not been received the image data pieces as many as the number based on the layer count data within a predetermined time. The motivation for performing such a modification in Fujimoto is to decode the image according to the imaging count of the video image signal while synchronizing the video image signal with the timing, thereby correcting the counts for the encoder ((See Fukushima col. 3, lines 16-22).
As per claims 3, 8, 10 and 11, the combination of Fujimoto and Fukushima further teaches a storage unit configured to store the compressed image data generated by the compression unit (See Fujimoto [0110]).
As per claim 5, the combination of Fujimoto and Fukushima further teaches wherein the storage unit records imaging position data with the compressed image data (See Fujimoto [0052] and [0055]).
5. Claims 2, 4, 7, 9 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujimoto et al. (US Patent Application Publication no. 2018/0259762) in view of Fukushima et al. (US Patent no. 6,477,204) as applied to claims 1 and 6 above, and further in view of Cramb et al. (US Patent no. 10,935,778).
As per claims 2 and 7, it is noted that the combination of Fujimoto and Fukushima is silent about a stage on which the specimen is placed; and a stage moving mechanism configured to relatively move the microscope and the stage in a perpendicular direction to the optical axis direction, wherein the control unit transmits, to the stage moving mechanism, a stage-movement control signal to relatively move the microscope and the stage in the perpendicular direction to the optical axis direction.
However, Cramb teaches a stage on which the specimen is placed (See Cramb Abstract, col. 1, lines 10-17); and a stage moving mechanism configured to relatively move the microscope and the stage in a perpendicular direction to the optical axis direction, wherein the control unit transmits, to the stage moving mechanism, a stage-movement control signal to relatively move the microscope and the stage in the perpendicular direction to the optical axis direction (See Cramb col. 1, lines 62-67, col. 3, lines 1-10, and col. 2, lines 41-52).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying the combination of Fujimoto and Fukushima to incorporate Cramb’s teachings wherein a stage moving mechanism configured to relatively move the microscope and the stage in a perpendicular direction to the optical axis direction, wherein the control unit transmits, to the stage moving mechanism, a stage-movement control signal to relatively move the microscope and the stage in the perpendicular direction to the optical axis direction. The motivation for performing such a modification in the proposed combination of Fujimoto and Fukushima is to properly adjust the height of the imaging head in order to capture optically formed microscopic sectional images that will be used.
As per claims 4 and 9, the combination of Fujimoto, Fukishima and Cramb further teaches wherein the control unit transmits, to the imaging unit, the imaging timing signal at a timing when the focal coordinate attains a predetermined coordinate based on the focal plane control signal and the stage-movement control signal (See Cramb col. 1, lines 62-67, col. 3, lines 1-10, and col. 2, lines 41-52).
As per claim 12, the combination of Fujimoto, Fukishima and Cramb further teaches transmitting the imaging timing signal to the imaging unit at a timing when the focal coordinate attains a predetermined coordinate (See Cramb col. 1, lines 62-67, col. 3, lines 1-10, and col. 2, lines 41-52).
6. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
See the Notice of References Cited (PTO-892).
7. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GIMS S PHILIPPE whose telephone number is (571)272-7336. The examiner can normally be reached Maxi Flex.
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/GIMS S PHILIPPE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2424