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 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The indicated allowability of previous claim 9, including the or statement between elements (a) and (b) is withdrawn in view of the newly discovered reference(s) to Culf (US. Patent No. 2012/0060379). Rejections based on the newly cited reference(s) follow.
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.
Claims 21 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Haneda (U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2008/0016704) in view of Culf (U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2012/0060379).
Regarding claim 21, Haneda teaches a cutting instrument (300)(Figure 3A) comprising:
a cutting wedge (306) comprising: a leading edge (334) and one or more cutting fasciae terminating at the leading edge, wherein the one or more cutting fasciae comprise:
a first cutting fasciae (338) comprising: a first lower surface (X2): (a) terminating at the leading edge, (b) comprises
a second cutting fasciae (340) comprising: a second lower surface (X2) (a) terminating at the leading edge, (b) comprises
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Regarding claim 21, Haneda does not provide the first lower surface (X2) comprises no less than 30 microns in length or the second lower surface (X2) no less than 30 microns in length.
Culf teaches it is known in the art of blades to provide a blade having a variety of distances in length from the leading edge and the first/second lower surfaces (Figures 2a-2b; Paragraph 0035; Noting the measurements once converted fall within the claimed limitation of no less than 30 microns in length).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to have modified the device of Haneda to incorporate the teachings of Culf to provide various lengths for the first and second lower surfaces of the cutting instrument. Doing so allows for the surfaces to be sized as desired based on the required cutting to be done via the cutting-edge surfaces.
Regarding claim 25, the modified device of Haneda teaches the cutting instrument of claim 21, and wherein: the one or more cutting fasciae further comprise an upper surface (X1); and the first approximately concave portion is located between the first lower surface and the upper surface (See annotated Figure 3A above); the cutting wedge (306) further comprises an upper edge (332) at an opposite end of the cutting wedge from the leading edge of the cutting wedge (Figure 3A); the upper surface comprises a length that extends from an upper end of the first approximately concave portion to the upper edge of the cutting wedge (See annotated Figure 3A above); the first lower surface comprises a length that extends from the leading edge to a lower end of the first approximately concave portion, wherein the upper end of the first approximately concave portion is located at an opposite end of the first approximately concave portion from the lower end of the first approximately concave portion; and the length of the upper surface is different from the length of the first lower surface (See annotated Figure 3A of Haneda above noting that the differences in length between the noted upper surface X1 portion and the lower surface portion X2).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claim 27 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Haneda (U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2008/0016704) in view of Culf (U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2012/0060379) as applied to claim 21 above, and further in view of Uemura (US 2015/0096423).
Regarding claim 27, the modified device of Haneda teaches all of the elements of the current invention including a cutting tool capable of performing surgical cuts, buts does not specifically provide the cutting instrument comprises a surgical scalpel.
Uemura teaches it is known in the art of edged cutting tools to incorporate a surgical blade scalpel, and razor (Paragraph 0002, 0039; Figure 5).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to have modified the device of Haneda to incorporate the teachings of Uemura to provide the cutting tool as a surgical scalpel. In doing so, it allows for the device to be appropriately sharped to be utilized for a variety of situations.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-3, 5,6,8-10 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior art fails to anticipate or make obvious the claimed cutting instrument including “a surface roughness comprising: a measured arithmetic mean height (Sa) of 150 nm or less with a standard deviation of 30 nm or less across a measurement area of 16,641 square microns on at least a portion of the one or more cutting fasciae” of claim 1.
Claims 22,23,24,26,28-32 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 prior art fails to anticipate or make obvious the claimed cutting instrument including the specifics of the surface roughness, in combination with the remaining claimed subject matter.
Conclusion
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/RICHARD D CROSBY JR/ 06/26/2026Examiner, Art Unit 3724
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