A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 09/08/2026 has been entered.
DETAILED ACTION
Notices to Applicant
This communication is a non-final rejection. Claims 1-9, 11, and 13-17, as filed 09/08/2026, are currently pending and have been considered below.
Foreign benefit is generally acknowledged to JP 2023-192412 which was filed 11/10/2023.
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.
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 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. Specifically, the claim recites “the recognition processing” but this term lacks antecedent basis since the amendment deleted “for instructing recognition processing to be executed on the medical image” in the “acquiring” step. Therefore, the scope of claim 16 is not reasonably ascertainable.
Response to arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 09/08/2026 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejections under 35 U.S.C. 101 and 103 have been withdrawn.
Reasons for Allowance
Claims 1-9, 11, and 13-17 are allowable over the prior art. The Examiner’s reasons are described below.
The reasons given on page 15 of the final rejection dated 06/24/2026 are applicable to the pending claims and are incorporated herein.
Claims 1-9, 11, and 13-17 recite patent eligible subject matter. The Examiner’s reasons are described below.
The claimed invention recites an abstract idea in Step 2A Prong One because it recites various mental processes such as determining an order in which recognition processing is to be executed. However in Step 2A Prong Two, the claimed invention as a whole integrates the idea into a practical application because the order information is associated with the metadata of each medical image and then governs computer behavior such as which image is selected and which processing resource should be allocated for it. This is a technical implementation for allocating work and returning results from a recognition sever shared by a plurality of devices used in a plurality of medical examinations, and it addresses the problem described in [0079], namely, avoiding a “discrepancy…between the content of the medical image 40 displayed on the screen 35 of each endoscope device 10 and the content of the processing result (for example, the content of the processing result irrelevant to the content of the medical image 40 is displayed on the screen 35).” This improves the functioning of the shared server rather than merely invoking a computer as a tool to perform and carry out the task allocation decisions. Thus the rejections under 101 are withdrawn.
Conclusion
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/JOSHUA B BLANCHETTE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3626
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