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 .
Status of the Claims
The office action is in response to the claims filed on April 18, 2025 for the application filed April 18, 2025 which claims priority to a foreign application filed on October 20, 2022. Claims 1-6 are currently pending and have been examined.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wolf et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2020/0273557) in view of Flack et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2021/0173888) and Evans (U.S. Patent No. 5,924,074).
A surgical step video transmission system (Abstract, Claim 79 and paragraph [0069]), comprising:
a content server configured to store a plurality of surgical videos (Paragraph [0250], repository of a plurality of sets of surgical video footage reflecting a plurality of surgical procedures performed on differing patients. Paragraph [0223], In some embodiments, the repository may be a network location such as a server.);
a video segment management server configured to (Paragraph [0069], as apparent from the following description… , throughout the specification discussions utilizing terms such as “processing”, “calculating”, “computing”, “determining”, “generating”, “setting”, “configuring”, “selecting”, “defining”, “applying”, “obtaining”, “monitoring”, “providing”, “identifying”, “segmenting”, “classifying”, “analyzing”, “associating”, “extracting”, “storing”, “receiving”, “transmitting”, or the like, include actions and/or processes of a computer that manipulate and/or transform data into other data. The terms “computer”, “processor”, “controller”, “processing unit”, “computing unit”, and “ processing module” should be expansively construed to cover any kind of electronic device, component or unit with data processing capabilities, including, by way of non-limiting example… a server.) receive surgery-related information including a surgery type (Paragraph [0251], enabling a surgeon preparing for a contemplated surgical procedure to input case-specific information corresponding to the contemplated surgical procedure. Paragraph [0228], the case-specific information may include… the type of procedure being performed.), and based on the surgery-related information, divide and store the plurality of surgical videos stored in the content server based on detailed surgical steps (Paragraph [0252], At step 1230, process 1200 may include comparing the case-specific information with data associated with the plurality of sets of surgical video footage to identify a group of intraoperative events likely to be encountered during the contemplated surgical procedure. At step 1240, process 1200 may include using the case-specific information and the identified group of intraoperative events likely to be encountered to identify specific frames in specific sets of the plurality of sets of surgical video footage corresponding to the identified group of intraoperative events. The identified specific frames may include frames from the plurality of surgical procedures performed on differing patients. Paragraph [0254], At step 1270, process 1200 may include enabling the surgeon to view a presentation including the compilation containing frames from the differing surgical procedures performed on differing patients. Enabling the surgeon to view the presentation may include storing the presentation in a location accessible to another computing device. Paragraph [0195], the intraoperative surgical event may be any event or action that is associated with a surgical procedure or phase. Also see paragraph [0161]);
a surgical step determination server configured to (Paragraph [0069], as apparent from the following description… , throughout the specification discussions utilizing terms such as “processing”, “calculating”, “computing”, “determining”, “generating”, “setting”, “configuring”, “selecting”, “defining”, “applying”, “obtaining”, “monitoring”, “providing”, “identifying”, “segmenting”, “classifying”, “analyzing”, “associating”, “extracting”, “storing”, “receiving”, “transmitting”, or the like, include actions and/or processes of a computer that manipulate and/or transform data into other data. The terms “computer”, “processor”, “controller”, “processing unit”, “computing unit”, and “ processing module” should be expansively construed to cover any kind of electronic device, component or unit with data processing capabilities, including, by way of non-limiting example… a server.) determine detailed surgical steps based on a surgery type of a surgical patient and determine respective video segments related to each detailed surgical step (Paragraph [0252], At step 1230, process 1200 may include comparing the case-specific information with data associated with the plurality of sets of surgical video footage to identify a group of intraoperative events likely to be encountered during the contemplated surgical procedure. The group of intraoperative events likely to be encountered may be determined, for example, based on machine learning analyses performed on historical video footage, historical data other than video data, or any other form of data from which a prediction may be derived. At step 1240, process 1200 may include using the case-specific information and the identified group of intraoperative events likely to be encountered to identify specific frames in specific sets of the plurality of sets of surgical video footage corresponding to the identified group of intraoperative events. The identified specific frames may include frames from the plurality of surgical procedures performed on differing patients. Paragraph [0195], the intraoperative surgical event may be any event or action that is associated with a surgical procedure or phase. Also see paragraph [0161].);
a user terminal configured to receive a plurality of video segments based on the detailed surgical steps determined by the surgical step determination server (Paragraph [0254], At step 1270, process 1200 may include enabling the surgeon to view a presentation including the compilation containing frames from the differing surgical procedures performed on differing patients. As described above, enabling the surgeon to view the presentation may include outputting data to enable displaying the presentation on a screen or other display device, storing the presentation in a location accessible to another computing device, transmitting the presentation, or any other process or method that may cause the enable the presentation and/or compilation to be viewed.); and
Paragraph [0208], a user may request to view a plurality of intraoperative surgical events in the particular surgical footage. Presenting may also include transmitting the aggregate of the first group of frames to the user or otherwise making it accessible to the user. For example, the aggregate of the first group of frames may be transmitted through a network to a computing device of the user. Paragraph [0209], The user may submit the request through a computer device. Also see paragraphs [0219] and [0254].),
wherein the cache server is determined from a plurality of cache servers based on proximity to the user terminal's location or response speed, and
wherein the cache server is configured to check whether the respective video segments related to each detailed surgical step determined by the surgical step determination server are stored, and for video segments not stored in the cache server, receive and store the corresponding video segments from the video segment management server
Wolf further discloses the server transmitting the respective video segments related to each detailed surgical step and storing the respective video segments related to each detailed surgical step in a location accessible to the user terminal (Paragraph [0254], enabling the surgeon to view the presentation may include outputting data to enable displaying the presentation on a screen or other display device, storing the presentation in a location accessible to another computing device, transmitting the presentation, or any other process or method that may cause the enable the presentation and/or compilation to be viewed. Also see paragraph [0208].), that the surgery-related information is received from a scheduling system (Paragraph [0229]) and the requested video segments are needed before a scheduled surgery (Paragraph [0228]), but does not appear to explicitly disclose a cache server configured to receive and store respective video segments, wherein the cache server is determined from a plurality of cache servers based on proximity to the user terminal's location or response speed, or wherein the cache server is configured to check whether the respective video segments related to each detailed surgical step determined by the surgical step determination server are stored, and for video segments not stored in the cache server, receive and store the corresponding video segments from the video segment management server
Flack teaches that it was old and well known in the art of content delivery at the time of the filing to provide a system including a cache server configured to receive and store respective video segments (Flack, paragraph [0002], Content delivery networks (CDNs) typically use proxy servers to improve the delivery of websites, web applications, and other online content such as streaming media. Paragraph [0003], The proxy server maintains a cache of content (also referred to, equivalently, as an ‘object’ cache). Paragraph [0004], retrieving the content from origin. Paragraph [0005], Typical kinds of content that can be stored in a proxy's cache include, images, video segments.),
wherein the cache server is determined from a plurality of cache servers based on proximity to the user terminal's location or response speed (Flack, paragraph [0002], A CDN usually has many proxy servers distributed across the Internet, e.g., located in end user access networks, peering points, or otherwise. An end user client desiring content under a domain being handled by the CDN is directed to a given proxy server in the CDN. This may be accomplished using a DNS-based request routing mechanism, in which the CDN's domain name service returns an IP address of a proxy server in response to a name lookup for the domain, as known in the art.), and
wherein the cache server is configured to check whether the respective video segments are stored, and for video segments not stored in the cache server, receive and store the corresponding video segments from a server (Flack, paragraph [0003], the end-user client makes a content request for a desired object to the proxy server (e.g., using HTTP or other application layer protocol that may be used to facilitate an API). (Such a proxy server is sometimes referred to as an “edge server” for example when deployed in an end-user access or “edge” network.) The proxy server maintains a cache of content (also referred to, equivalently, as an ‘object’ cache). The proxy server searches this cache for the content. If it locates an object and the object is not expired and otherwise valid to serve (cache hit), the end-user request can be served out of cache. If not (cache miss), the proxy server may need to fetch the object from an origin server associated with the content provider that is associated with the domain of the requested content.).
Evans teaches that it was old and well known in the art of electronic medical record systems at the time of the filing for a data manager to identify patient records that a healthcare provider needs for appointments scheduled at a future time and then transfer these patient records from the data archive 208 into the cache 206 for quick access prior to the scheduled appointment (Evans, column 9, lines 15-25)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art of content delivery and electronic medical records systems at the time of the filing, when faced with the problem of presenting video segments to a surgeon to modify the system of Wolf to include a cache server configured to receive and store respective video segments, wherein the cache server is determined from a plurality of cache servers based on proximity to the user terminal's location or response speed, and wherein the cache server is configured to check whether the respective video segments related to each detailed surgical step determined by the surgical step determination server are stored, and for video segments not stored in the cache server, receive and store the corresponding video segments from the video segment management server
Regarding claim 2, Wolf further discloses wherein the surgical step determination server is configured to determine the detailed surgical steps based on record information of a plurality of previous surgical patients who underwent the same type of surgery as the surgical patient Paragraph [0252], At step 1230, process 1200 may include comparing the case-specific information with data associated with the plurality of sets of surgical video footage to identify a group of intraoperative events likely to be encountered during the contemplated surgical procedure. Paragraph [0026], The plurality of sets of surgical video footage may reflect a plurality of surgical procedures performed on differing patients. For example, a number of different individuals who underwent the same or similar surgical procedure, or who underwent surgical procedures where a similar technique was employed may be included within a common set or a plurality of sets. Alternatively or in addition, one or more sets may include surgical footage captured from a single patient but at different times. The plurality of surgical procedures may be of the same type, for example, all including appendectomies, or may be of different types. In some embodiments, the plurality of surgical procedures may share common characteristics, such as the same or similar phases or intraoperative events. Paragraph [0232], Embodiments of the present disclosure may further include comparing the case-specific information with data associated with the plurality of sets of surgical video footage to identify a group of intraoperative events likely to be encountered during the contemplated surgical procedure. Data associated with the plurality of sets of surgical videos may include any stored information regarding the surgical video footage.)
Regarding claim 3, Wolf further discloses wherein the record information of the previous surgical patients includes at least one of gender, age, surgery timing, underlying diseases, history of other surgeries, post-operative prognosis, and surgical recovery period (Paragraph [0227], The plurality of sets of surgical video footage may further include intraoperative surgical events, surgical outcomes, patient characteristics, surgeon characteristics, and intraoperative surgical event characteristics. Examples of such events, outcomes, and characteristics are described throughout the present disclosure. A surgical outcome may include outcomes of the surgical procedure as a whole (e.g., whether the patient recovered or recovered fully, whether patient was readmitted after discharge, whether the surgery was successful), or outcomes of individual phases or events within the surgical procedure (e.g., whether a complication occurred or whether a technique was successful). Paragraph [0239], the common characteristic may include a patient's age, weight, height, or other demographics, may include patient condition, and so forth.).
Regarding claim 4, Wolf further discloses wherein the surgical step determination server is configured to determine the detailed surgical steps for the surgical patient by combining detailed surgical steps of a first previous surgical patient who underwent the same type of surgery as the surgical patient and detailed surgical steps of a second previous surgical patient who underwent the same type of surgery as the surgical patient (Paragraph [0238], the identified specific frames may include frames from the plurality of surgical procedures performed on differing patients. Accordingly, the identified specific frames may form a compilation of footage associated with intraoperative events from surgical procedures performed on different patients, which may be used for surgical preparation.).
Regarding claim 5, Wolf further discloses wherein the surgical step determination server is configured to recommend the detailed surgical steps for the surgical patient through a learning model using artificial intelligence (Paragraph [0246], identified group of intraoperative events likely to be encountered and/or the identified specific frames in specific sets of the plurality of sets of surgical video footage corresponding to the identified group of intraoperative events. For example, a machine learning algorithm (such as a Generative Adversarial Network) may be used to train a machine learning model (such as an artificial neural network, a deep learning model, a convolutional neural network, etc.) using training examples to generate simulations of surgical procedures based on groups of intraoperative events and/or frames of surgical video footage, and the trained machine learning model may be used to analyze the identified group of intraoperative events likely to be encountered and/or the identified specific frames in specific sets of the plurality of sets of surgical video footage corresponding to the identified group of intraoperative events and generate the simulated surgical procedure. Also see paragraph [0252].).
Regarding claim 6: all limitations as recited have been analyzed and rejected with respect to claim 1. Claims 6 pertain to a method, corresponding to the system of claim 1. Claim 6 does not teach or define any new limitations beyond claim 1; therefore claim 6 is rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Devin C. Hein whose telephone number is (303)297-4305. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM M-F MDT.
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/DEVIN C HEIN/Examiner, Art Unit 3686