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 .
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) 1-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Axelrod et al. (2011/0282192).
With respect to claim 1, Axelrod et al. teach of a composite endoscopic imaging device or a fiber-optic multimodal OCT/photoacoustic endoscope with beam scanning by a 2D MEMS scanner present in the endoscopic head where the photoacoustic, OCT, and multi-spectral light sources are coupled to the endoscopic head (fig. 1, [0071]). Axelrod et al. teach of an axial imaging device for capturing an image in an axial direction of the composite endoscopic imaging device [0102, 0104]. Axelrod et al. teach of the composite endoscopic imaging device to include lenses (fig. 2, 3), a photosensitive element or photodetector disposed on an imaging path of the lens [0088, 0090] or CCD/CMOS [0051]. Axelrod et al. teach of the endoscope head module (MOEMS) to be equipped with a MEMS scanner and control electronics which are aligned by location in tight tolerance polyimide tubing (fig. 3, 4, 0066, 0075, 0082, 0084) and therefore under broadest reasonable interpretation, the composite endoscopic imaging device obviously includes a flexible printed circuit board as a MEMS scanner unit in an endoscope is very commonly integrated onto a flexible printed circuit board without requiring bulky space required for conventional wires. Axelrod et al. teach of a first radial imaging device or OCT device disposed behind the photoacoustic imaging device for capturing an image in a first radial direction of the composite endoscopic imaging device [0071, 0072, fig. 1].
With respect to claim 2, Axelrod et al. teach of the use of the first radial imaging device being an OCT device and the second radial imaging device to be photoacoustic imaging device or a combination of the photoacoustic, OCT, and multi-spectral imaging modalities [0064, 0081] with combination of OCT/PA imaging and switching between the different modalities [0081, 0083, claim 1].
With respect to claims 3 and 4, Axelrod et al. teach of the axial imaging device to comprise a reflection device disposed on the imaging path of the lens where the reflection device is a mirror [0075, 0077, 0080, fig. 2]. Axelrod et al. further teach of the upper surface of the photosensitive element or photodetector to be parallel to the axial direction and the lens forms an image on the photodetector via the mirror [0077, 0088].
With respect to claim 5, Axelrod et al. teach of the reflection device to be a double-sided reflection device or a beam-splitter [0090] and the first radial imaging device is an OCT device acquiring tomography image via the beam-splitter [0101].
With respect to claim 6, Axelrod et al. teach of the upper surface of the photodetector is perpendicular to the axial direction (fig. 2, 4) with the lens directly forming an image on the photodetector [0088] or the CCD/CMOS camera [0051] with the flexible printed circuit board or the MEMS scanner which are aligned by location in tight tolerance polyimide tubing allowing bending near the photodetector element (fig. 3, 0066, 0075).
With respect to claim 7, Axelrod et al. teach of a second radial imaging device such as the photoacoustic imaging device disposed below the flexible printed circuit or the polyimide tubing as part of the endoscopic head for capturing an image in a second radial direction of the composite endoscopic imaging device [fig. 4, 0089, 0105].
With respect to claims 8-10, Axelrod et al. teach of the use of the first radial imaging device being an OCT device and the second radial imaging device to be photoacoustic imaging device or a combination of the photoacoustic, OCT, and multi-spectral imaging modalities [0064, 0081] with combination of OCT/PA imaging and switching between the different modalities [0081, 0083, claim 1]. Axelrod et al. teach of using the optical switch to switch from one imaging modality to another without removing the endoscope inserted into the body [0061] and incorporated in the single endoscopic head (fig. 1, 0072, 0081) and therefore it would be obvious that the first/second radial imaging device modalities are located in opposite directions to ensure switching between the modalities without removing the endoscope from the body.
Axelrod et al. do not teach of all the claimed elements in a single embodiment. It would have therefore been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine elements from the different embodiments to integrate simultaneous use of multiple imaging modalities and switch between the modalities without removing the inserted endoscope from the body [0030].
Conclusion
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BR
/BAISAKHI ROY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3797
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