DETAILED ACTION
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because the figures 5a and 5b are missing x- and y-axis labels. Specifically, what do the x- and y-axis represent. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Objections
Claim 30 is objected to because of the following informalities: The colon is missing, separating the preamble from the body of the claim. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitations are: “system” in claims 1, 27 and 30 and “control unit” in Claim 27.
Because these claim limitations are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, they are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have these limitations interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitations to avoid them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitations recite sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim limitations “system” and “control unit” invokes 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. However, the written description fails to disclose the corresponding structure, material, or acts for performing the entire claimed function and to clearly link the structure, material, or acts to the function. Therefore, the claim is indefinite and is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph.
Applicant may:
(a) Amend the claim so that the claim limitation will no longer be interpreted as a limitation under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph;
(b) Amend the written description of the specification such that it expressly recites what structure, material, or acts perform the entire claimed function, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)); or
(c) Amend the written description of the specification such that it clearly links the structure, material, or acts disclosed therein to the function recited in the claim, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)).
If applicant is of the opinion that the written description of the specification already implicitly or inherently discloses the corresponding structure, material, or acts and clearly links them to the function so that one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize what structure, material, or acts perform the claimed function, applicant should clarify the record by either:
(a) Amending the written description of the specification such that it expressly recites the corresponding structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function and clearly links or associates the structure, material, or acts to the claimed function, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)); or
(b) Stating on the record what the corresponding structure, material, or acts, which are implicitly or inherently set forth in the written description of the specification, perform the claimed function. For more information, see 37 CFR 1.75(d) and MPEP §§ 608.01(o) and 2181.
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 16-24, 26 and 28-29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Claesson et al., “Calibration of IMU’s using Neural Networks and Adaptive Techniques,” (2019) (hereinafter Claesson) (cited by the Applicant) in view of Lang, US-PGPUB 2021/0192759 (hereinafter Lang)
Regarding Claims 16 and 27. Claesson discloses calibrating and determining at least one position and/or orientation of an inertial measurement unit (Abstract), comprising:
moving the inertial measurement unit by a robot along a trajectory in space, capturing, during movement, movement data by the inertial measurement unit and providing the movement data (section 1.1, bottom of page 2 to top of page 3; section 3, top and section 3.1, section 3.5, page 21), linking the movement data to the position and/or orientation in order to obtain a training data set; training an AI system with the training data set to obtain an IMU calibration of said captured movement data to said captured position and/or orientation, capturing movement data of the inertial measurement unit as an input to the trained AI system (pages 7-11), and determining and outputting, based on the input movement data, a position and/or orientation of the inertial measurement unit by the trained AI system (page 15, Fig. 3.1; pages 13-36, detailed description)
Claesson does not disclose explicitly disclose providing the movement data to a control unit, and capturing, during movement, a position and/or orientation of the inertial measurement unit by a tracking system.
Lang discloses disclose providing the movement data to a control unit, and capturing, during movement, a position and/or orientation of the inertial measurement unit by a tracking system and calibrating the IMU (Paragraphs [0160]. [0207], [0211], [0325], [0335], [0688]).
At the time of the invention filed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use the teaching of Lang in Claesson and provide the movement data to a control unit, and capture, during movement, a position and/or orientation of the inertial measurement unit by a tracking system and calibrate the IMU with accuracy.
Regarding Claim 17. Claesson discloses capturing movement data, at least one acceleration and one orientation are captured (Fig. 1.1, pages 1-2; section 2.1.1, pages 6-7)
Regarding Claim 18. Claesson discloses wherein the movement data comprises
the at least one acceleration and at least one rotation rate (Fig. 1.1, pages 1-2; section 2.1.1, pages 6-7; section 4.1, pages 24-25)
Regarding Claim 19. Claesson discloses linking the captured movement data to the captured position and/or orientation, the movement data are assigned at a first point in time to the captured position and/or orientation at the first point in time (Fig. 1.1, pages 1-2; section 2.1.1, pages 6-7)
Regarding Claim 20. Claesson discloses a movement of the inertial measurement unit by the robot (section 1.1, bottom of page 2 to top of page 3; section 3, top and section 3.1, section 3.5, page 21)
Regarding Claim 21. Claesson discloses a capturing of the position and/or orientation of the inertial measurement unit by a robotic kinematic tracking system section 1.1, bottom of page 2 to top of page 3; section 3, top and section 3.1, section 3.5, page 21)
Regarding Claim 22. Claesson discloses movement data includes three acceleration values in three directions and three rotation rate values or three orientation values about three axes (page 6) and the AI system comprises at least six nodes in an input layer (pages 7-9)
Regarding Claim 23. Claesson discloses an artificial neural network is used as the AI system (pages 7-9)
Regarding Claim 24. Claesson discloses the artificial neural network is a recurrent deep neural network, a long short-term memory network or a convolutional recurrent network that obviously can be used (page 8)
Regarding Claim 26. Claesson discloses determining and outputting, in addition to the position and/or orientation, a corrected acceleration and/or a corrected speed of the inertial measurement unit is output (page 15, Fig. 3.1)
Regarding Claim 28. Lang discloses the tracking system comprises an optical tracking system (Paragraph [0217], [0245])
Regarding Claim 29. Lang discloses the tracking system comprises a mechanical kinematic-based tracking system (Paragraph [0439], [0456]-[0457], [1047]).
9. Claim 25 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Claesson et al., “Calibration of IMU’s using Neural Networks and Adaptive Techniques,” (2019) in view of Fuerst et al., US-PGPUB 2022/0280238 (hereinafter Fuerst)
Regarding Claim 25. Claesson discloses the robot changes speed and/or acceleration and/or rotation rate or orientation during the movement (Figs 3.4 and 3.5, 4.2, etc.)
The modified Claesson does not explicitly disclose step of moving takes place along a predefined trajectory.
Fuerst discloses surgical robotic arms are driving along predefined trajectory (Paragraph [0051]; Abstract)
At the time of the invention filed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use the teaching of Fuerst in the modified Claesson and have the step of moving takes place along a predefined trajectory, so as to operate the robotic arm in controlled manner.
Claims 30-31 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Claesson et al., “Calibration of IMU’s using Neural Networks and Adaptive Techniques,” (2019) in view of Craig et al., US-PGPUB 2020/0100647 (hereinafter Craig)
Regarding Claim 30. Claesson discloses an inertial measurement unit and a trained AI system, wherein the trained AI system is trained by a training system in order to obtain a position and/or orientation of the inertial measurement unit, wherein captured movement data of the inertial measurement unit is an input for the trained AI system (section 1.1, bottom of page 2 to top of page 3; section 3, top and section 3.1, section 3.5, page 21; pages 7-11; page 15, Fig. 3.1; pages 13-36, detailed description)
Claesson does not disclose the medical instrument comprising an inertial measurement unit.
Craig discloses the medical instrument, which comprises the inertial measurement unit, including receiving position and orientation data from the IMU positioned at a portion of the endoscope that allows dynamic and flexible operation of the endoscope in creating anatomical images (Abstract; Paragraph [0115]; Figs. 1-4; Paragraph [0028]-[0029])
At the time of the invention filed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use the teaching of Craig in Claesson so as to perform accurate dynamic and flexible operations of the medical instrument, specifically endoscope in creating anatomical images.
Regarding Claim 31. Craig discloses the medical instrument is an endoscope, which comprises the inertial measurement unit, including receiving position and orientation data from the IMU positioned at a portion of the endoscope that allows dynamic and flexible operation of the endoscope in creating anatomical images (Abstract; Paragraph [0115]; Figs. 1-4; Paragraph [0028]-[0029])
11. Claims 32-33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Claesson et al., “Calibration of IMU’s using Neural Networks and Adaptive Techniques,” (2019) in view of Lee et al., US-PGPUB 2019/0365290 (hereinafter Lee)
Regarding Claim 32. Claesson does not disclose the medical instrument is a gait analysis system comprising at least one inertial measurement unit.
Lee discloses medical instrument is a gait analysis system comprising at least one inertial measurement unit (Abstract; Paragraphs [0003]-[0006]; [0062]; [0084])
At the time of the invention filed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use the teaching of Lee in Claesson and where the medical instrument is a gait analysis system comprising at least one inertial measurement unit, so as to automatically monitor person’s position and orientation associated with walking.
Regarding Claim 33. Lee discloses the at least one inertial measurement unit is positioned on a knee and/or on a hip and/or on a foot of a subject (Paragraph [0029])
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Stawiaski et al., US-PGPUB 2019/0374289
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/HYUN D PARK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2857
