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
This application is a continuation-in-part of PCT/IB2022/058980 filed 22 September 2022, which claims the benefit of domestic priority from US Provisional Application no. 63/308,517 filed 10 February 2022.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Invention I pertaining to claims 14-22 in the reply filed on 14 May 2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 23-35 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected Invention II, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply.
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.
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) 14-16, 18, and 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Japanese Application no. 2021-502864 (hereinafter ‘864 – English translation provided by USPTO) in view of Denlinger et al. (US Publication no. 2020/0289216).
In regard to claim 14, the ‘864 application is found to disclose a method for feeding tools to a robotic surgical system comprising one or more surgical robotic arms (arms 174a-c) mounted on one or more chassis (the chassis structural support unit 100 comprised of vertical support member 120, boom unit 160, and rotary support 172 as shown in figure 20) and having a central control unit which controls movement of the one or more surgical robotic arms in a surgical robotic coordinate space (page 2, two or more surgical robot arms 174a-1 may be attached to vertical support member 120 and structural support unit 100 via boom unit 160; page 4; the system with a configured controller is provided; additionally, the requirement for the movement in coordinate space, while not expressly disclosed, is considered implicit by the disclosure of ‘864 to guide positioning of robotic arms 174a-c at target locations in a controlled manner; page 4, further with respect to this, a position detected (e.g. a camera) is used to guide robotic arm in the workspace), said method comprising:
attaching at least one tool cart to the chassis of the robotic surgical system (page 14, with respect to figure 20, the tool storage unit 240 is attached to the rotary support 172 (figure 21), wherein it has been considered that the rotary support 172 in additional to the boom 160 and structural support unit 100 comprise the chassis of the robot)
registering a tool cart coordinate space of the at least one tool cart with the surgical robotic coordinate space of the robotic surgical system to form a common surgical robotic space (page 4, storage unit has plurality of position positioning portions 244a-c which guide the arm to location of specific tools), wherein the at least one tool cart removably carries a plurality of surgical tools 242a-c at known locations within the tool cart coordinate space (page 4, the tools are placed at position positioning portion 244a-c);
kinematically manipulating one or more of the one or more surgical robotic arms to locate and retrieve individual tools from the at least one tool cart based upon the individual tool's known retrieval location in the common surgical robotic space (page 4, position the position detector (eg, camera) and the distal end of the tool (242a-c) from the position detector and automatically dock the distal end of the tool (242a-c) into the workspace);
manipulating one or more of the one or more surgical robotic arms to perform a surgical operation on a patient with the retrieved surgical tools (page 12, The robot arm is configured to control the position and / or orientation of a tool 242a-c for acting on the object 210. The robot arm may be configured to control other functions such as grippers, scissors, cameras, and light sources located at the distal end of the device); and
kinematically manipulating the one or more surgical robotic arms to return individual tools to the at least one tool cart based upon the individual tool's return location in the common surgical robotic space (page 13, the robot arm is further configured to return the selected tool 242a to its position on the tool storage unit 240 (see, eg, FIG. 15C) and remove it from the robot arm mount 226).
Further in regard to claim 14, in as much as the ‘864 patent may imply registration with a coordinate system in order to guide positioning of the arm to the proper tool in the storage unit and to guide the arm during use in procedure on an object, the reference does not expressly teach the steps of registering the features of the robot with a coordinate system. Denlinger et al. describes a robot for surgery and describes a robot coordinate plane as a three dimensional position in which the robot operates within (para 230). The features of the robot, particularly robot arms 512, 514 are registered to the particular coordinate system during a surgical procedure (para 232). Registration of robot system components to operate within the robot coordinate plane is considered to be routine in the art in order to establish a common reference frame in which motion planning and manipulation may occur, to improve positional accuracy particularly during a procedure requiring absolute precision, and to be able to retrieve and exchange tools from the tool storage unit. Therefore, it is considered to have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to register components of the robot system, including the tool cart within a common coordinate plane as the application a known technique to yield a predictable outcome of enabling accurate determination of tool locations within the tool storage unit.
In regard to claim 15, in the ‘864 reference, it can be considered that the reference implicitly teaches manipulating the one or more surgical robotic arms to perform the surgical operation on a patient with the retrieved surgical tools comprises at least in part kinematically tracking the locations of said retrieved surgical tools and said one or more surgical robotic arms (page 4, the reference teaches a position detector (e.g., camera) and a controller configured to automatically dock the distal end of the tool and well as to retrieve and return tools to tool storage 240. It is considered that one of ordinary skill would understand that automatic docking using a position detector requires determining the position of the robot arm’s end effector as it moves relative to the tool storage. Accordingly, the reference teaches tracking movement of the robot arm, at least at its distal end).
In regard to claim 16, in the ‘864 reference, it can be considered that the reference implicitly teaches manipulating the one or more surgical robotic arms to perform the surgical operation on a patient with the retrieved surgical tools comprises at least in part optically tracking the locations of said retrieved surgical tools and said one or more surgical robotic arms (page 4, the reference teaches a position detector (e.g., camera which is an optical sensor) and a controller configured to automatically dock the distal end of the tool and well as to retrieve and return tools to tool storage 240. It is considered that one of ordinary skill would understand that automatic docking using the camera requires determining the position of the robot arm’s end effector as it moves relative to the tool storage. Accordingly, the reference teaches tracking movement of the robot arm optically, at least at its distal end).
In regard to claim 18, in the ‘864 reference, it can be considered that the reference implicitly teaches registering the tool cart coordinate space of the tool cart with the surgical robotic coordinate space of the robotic surgical system to form a common surgical robotic space comprises at least in part optically registering markers on the at least one tool cart with markers on the robotic surgical system (page 4, storage unit has plurality of position positioning portions 244a-c which guide the arm to location of specific tools), wherein the at least one tool cart removably carries a plurality of surgical tools 242a-c at known locations within the tool cart coordinate space (page 4, the tools are placed at position positioning portion 244a-c). in as much as the ‘864 patent may imply registration with a coordinate system in order to guide positioning of the arm to the proper tool in the storage unit and to guide the arm during use in procedure on an object, the reference does not expressly teach the steps of registering the features of the robot with a coordinate system. Denlinger et al. describes a robot for surgery and describes a robot coordinate plane as a three dimensional position in which the robot operates within (para 230). The features of the robot, particularly robot arms 512, 514 are registered to the particular coordinate system during a surgical procedure (para 232). Registration of robot system components to operate within the robot coordinate plane is considered to be routine in the art in order to establish a common reference frame in which motion planning and manipulation may occur, to improve positional accuracy particularly during a procedure requiring absolute precision, and to be able to retrieve and exchange tools from the tool storage unit. Therefore, it is considered to have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to register components of the robot system, including the tool cart within a common coordinate plane as the application a known technique to yield a predictable outcome of enabling accurate determination of tool locations within the tool storage unit.
In regard to claim 21, in the ‘864 reference expressly teaches that the retrieval and return locations are the same (page 4, return to the storage unit for the selected tool and return to its position).
Claim(s) 17 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Japanese Application no. 2021-502864 (hereinafter ‘864 – English translation provided by USPTO) in view of Denlinger et al. (US Publication no. 2020/0289216), further in view of Japanese no. 7003157 (hereinafter ‘157 – English translation provided by USPTO).
In regard to claim 17, The ‘864 reference in view of Denlinger et al. is considered to substantially suggest the invention as claimed, however does not teach attaching the at least one tool cart to the chassis of the robotic surgical system comprises detachably securing a chassis of the at least one tool cart to the chassis of the robotic surgical system with a known arrangement that allows the central control unit to register the tool cart coordinate space with the surgical robotic coordinate space to form the common surgical robotic space. The ‘864 reference teaches that tool storage is mounted on an arm of the surgical robot, wherein each tool in tool storage us provided with a plurality of fixed positioned portions for each tool (page 4). Denlinger et al. supplies the teaching for registering components of the surgical robot in robot coordinate plane. Neither teaches the detachable aspect to the chassis. The ‘157 reference teaches an arm cart for providing, transferring, delivering, and mounting a robot arm to an operating table (page 2, under Description of Embodiments). This is considered applicable to the arm of the ‘864 reference that comprises the tool storage. The arm cart is releasably coupled to a coupling site of the operating table (page 2, under Description of Embodiments, the cart may include a base and a first engaging mechanism). The arm cart 350 and the operating table 300 have a common interface so that the robot arm 330 can be efficiently and repeatedly connected to and / or detached from the operating table 300 and the arm cart 350 (page 5). In view of this, it is considered to have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to make the arm with tool storage detachable from the robot since the ‘157 reference teaches the feature to facilitate safe, efficient, sterile, and repeatable transfer of one or more robotic arms to the operating table and / or arm adapter.
In regard to claim 19, The ‘864 reference in view of Denlinger et al. is considered to substantially suggest the invention as claimed, however does not teach the robotic surgical system comprises at least one mobile cart and wherein said at least one mobile cart is positioned adjacent to and/or under a surgical table prior to attaching at least one tool cart to the chassis. The ‘157 reference teaches an arm cart for providing, transferring, delivering, and mounting a robot arm to an operating table (page 2, under Description of Embodiments). This is considered applicable to the arm of the ‘864 reference that comprises the tool storage. The arm cart is releasably coupled to a coupling site of the operating table (page 2, under Description of Embodiments, the cart may include a base and a first engaging mechanism). The cart and arm may be placed under the table top prior to surgery (page 13-14, provided with description of figure 11). In view of this, it is considered to have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to make include a mobile cart for securing to the robot or operating table before the attaching an arm to the robot in order to ensure that the cart is aligned and/or registered within the robot coordinate plane before any tool or arm selection.
Claim(s) 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Japanese Application no. 2021-502864 (hereinafter ‘864 – English translation provided by USPTO) in view of Denlinger et al. (US Publication no. 2020/0289216), further in view of Fredrickson et al. (US Publication no. 2020/0198147).
In regard to claim 20, The ‘864 reference in view of Denlinger et al. is considered to substantially suggest the invention as claimed, however does not teach the robotic surgical system is mounted on a surgical bed. Frederickson et al. disclose a surgical robot, wherein in figure 5, the surgical robot is mounted to a patient bed or table (para 71). Incorporation of the table provides the benefit of reducing the amount of equipment in the operating room thereby allowing greater access to the patient (para 67). Therefore, it is considered to have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the robot chassis of the ‘864 patent to mount to a patient bed or table since it would comprise applying a known technique for mounting robotically enabled equipment to a similar robot device in order to achieve the result of reducing the amount of equipment in the operating room thereby allowing greater access to the patient.
Claim(s) 22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Japanese Application no. 2021-502864 (hereinafter ‘864 – English translation provided by USPTO) in view of Denlinger et al. (US Publication no. 2020/0289216), further in view of Treat et al. (US Publication no. 2011/0262250).
In regard to claim 22, The ‘864 reference in view of Denlinger et al. is considered to substantially suggest the invention as claimed, however does not teach wherein the retrieval and return locations are different. Treat is directed to an automated robotic system for handling surgical instruments. The technique includes processing and sorting instruments and tools used in surgery in various containers in order to be cleaned and sterilized prior to the next use (para 42-44). The items are placed in a used tray (para 84). In view of the teachings of Treat et al., it is considered to have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the ‘864 reference to replace or return used tools to a different location from where the tool was retrieved in order to place used tools in a container that may be taken for cleaning and sterilization after use.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRIAN T GEDEON whose telephone number is (571)272-3447. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00 am to 5:30 PM ET.
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/BRIAN T GEDEON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3796 10 July 2026
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