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
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, 5-9, 12-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Usuda (US 2021/0042925) in view of Freedman (US 2022/0369920).
Regarding claim 1, Usuda teaches a medical support device comprising a processor (pars. 99-102 and 156-179).
Usuda teaches an insertion step frame obtained by imaging a first feature region in the body by the camera in an insertion step of inserting the camera into the body, in the form of a lesion image acquired during the insertion examination (pars. 119-124).
Usuda teaches a removal step frame obtained by imaging a second feature region in the body by the camera in a removal step of removing the camera from the body, in the form of a lesion image acquired during the withdrawal examination (pars. 119-124 and 128-130).
Usuda teaches executing a first specifying process of specifying an identity between the first feature region and the second feature region, in that a lesion identification unit compares a lesion acquired during withdrawal with a lesion acquired during insertion and determines whether they are the same lesion based on a degree of similarity (pars. 99-102 and 128-130).
Usuda does not teach acquiring position specifying information for specifying a position of the camera, or executing the first specifying process based on insertion position specifying information and removal position specifying information.
Freedman teaches acquiring position specifying information for specifying a position of a camera inserted into a body, in the form of egomotion-derived z-position information of the camera associated with an image frame (pars. 37, 54 and 60).
Freedman teaches insertion position specifying information corresponding to the insertion step frame, in the form of the z-position attributed to a frame captured during the forward (insertion) phase (pars. 17, 34 and 54).
Freedman teaches removal position specifying information corresponding to the removal step frame, in the form of the z-position attributed to a frame captured during the backward (withdrawal) phase (pars. 19, 34 and 54).
Freedman teaches executing the identity specifying process based on the insertion and removal position specifying information, in that a polyp marked by its z-position during the forward phase is identified during the backward phase when the egomotion data indicates the camera has returned to that z-position (pars. 53-57).
It would have been obvious prior to the effective filing date of the invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to include in Usuda the ability to acquire and use the frame-associated z-position information taught by Freedman. The reason is that Usuda already compares lesions found during insertion with lesions found during withdrawal in order to avoid overlooking or duplicately counting lesions (pars. 8-9), and Freedman teaches that frame-associated camera position information serves this purpose by indicating when the camera has returned to the position of a previously observed feature region (pars. 19 and 57),
Regarding claim 2, see Usuda pars. 99-102 and 124.
Regarding claim 3, see Usuda par. 124 and figure 11.
Regarding claim 5, see Usuda pars. 119-121 and Freedman pars. 27, 41 and 54. Also see the reason for combination in the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 6, see Usuda pars. 99-102 and 128-130 and Freedman pars. 17-18, 34 and 54.
Regarding claim 7, Usuda teaches a medical support device comprising a processor (pars. 99-102 and 156-179).
Usuda teaches the second specifying process of specifying an identity between the third feature region and the fourth feature region (pars. 99-102 and 128-130).
Freedman teaches acquiring position specifying information for specifying a position of a camera inserted into a body (pars. 37, 54 and 60).
Freedman teaches the pushing step frame and pushing position specifying information (pars. 17-18, 34 and 54).
Freedman teaches the pulling step frame and pulling position specifying information (pars. 18-19, 34 and 54).
Freedman teaches executing the second specifying process based on that position specifying information (pars. 53-57).
Regarding claim 8, see Usuda pars. 99-102 and 124.
Regarding claim 9 see Usuda par. 124.
Regarding claim 12 see Freedman pars. 27, 41 and 54
Regarding claim 13, see Usuda pars. 99-102 and 128-130.
Regarding claim 14, see Usuda pars. 99-102 and 128-130.
Regarding claim 15 see Freedman pars. 37 and 60.
Regarding claim 16 see Freedman pars. 37, 54 and 60.
Regarding claim 17, see the rejection of claim 1 and Usuda (pars. 60-65 and 156-179).
Regarding claims 18 and 20, see the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claims 19 and 21, see the rejection of claim 7.
Claims 4 and 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Usuda (US 2021/0042925) in view of Freedman (US 2022/0369920) in further view of Imaizumi (20180249900).
Regarding claim 4, Usuda and Freedman do not teach executing the first specifying process on a condition that a plurality of insertion step frames, equal to or more than a first predetermined number, are continuously acquired.
Imaizumi teaches executing a specifying process on a condition that a plurality of frames, equal to or more than a predetermined number, are continuously acquired, in that a lesion candidate region detected from sequentially input images is subjected to emphasis/notification processing only after being continuously detected over a predetermined number of frames (see pars. 35-36, 41 and 50).
It would have been obvious prior to the effective filing date of the invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to include in Usuda and Freedman the ability to execute the first specifying process only when a plurality of insertion step frames, equal to or more than a first predetermined number, are continuously acquired, as taught by Imaizumi. The reason is that conditioning lesion-support processing on continuous detection over a predetermined number of frames reduces false-positive detections and provides a more reliable basis for the specifying process.
Regarding claim 10, see Freedman (pars. 17-18 and 34) and Imaizumi (pars. 35-36 and 41)
Regarding claim 11, see Freedman pars. 18-19 and 34 and Imaizumi pars. 35-36 and 41).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Freudiger (20160178439) teaches Coherent anti-Stokes Raman Spectroscopy (CARS) and/or Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS).
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/HADI AKHAVANNIK/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2676
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