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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of group I in the reply filed on 09/30/2026 is acknowledged.
Status of Claims
Claims 1, 8, 11, 16, 23, and 26 are pending, claims 11, 16, 23, and 26 have been withdrawn from consideration, and claims 1 and 8 are currently under consideration for patentability under 37 CFR 1.104
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 05/05/2025, 08/06/2025, 12/10/2025, and 10/01/2026 have been considered by the examiner.
Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)
The current application has been granted participation in the Patent Prosecution Highyway (PPH) program.
Any claims amended or added after the grant of the request for participation in the Global/IP5 PPH pilot program must sufficiently correspond to one or more allowable/patentable claims in the OEE application. The applicant is required to submit, along with the amendment, a statement certifying that the amended or newly added claims sufficiently correspond to the allowable/patentable claims in the OEE application. If the certification statement is omitted, the amendment will not be entered and will be treated as a non-responsive reply.
A claim is considered to sufficiently correspond where the claim is of the same or similar scope as an allowable claim in the related OEE application. A claim that is narrower in scope than an allowable OEE claim will also sufficiently correspond if it presented as a claim dependent upon a claim that is of the same or similar scope to an allowable OEE claim.
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 and 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wong et al. (US 2019/0298451) in view of Lamprecht et al. (US 2007/0156017).
With respect to claim 1, Wong et al. teaches a method of providing surgical guidance during a surgical procedure, the method comprising:
displaying, during the surgical procedure, a three-dimensional (3D) navigation guide of a surgical site to a user (320), wherein the 3D navigation guide is initially set to a placeholder 3D navigation guide (para [0037]);
taking, by the user, an endoscopic video stream of the surgical site during the surgical procedure (para [0039]);
generating, from the endoscopic video stream of the surgical site, a surgical 3D navigation guide (340), wherein the surgical 3D navigation guide is navigable and explorable using digital navigational controls (para [0049]-[0050] for example);
replacing all or a portion of the 3D navigation guide with the surgical 3D navigation guide so that the user may manipulate and consult the 3D navigation guide during the surgical procedure (355).
However, Wong et al. does not teach transmitting a copy of the 3D navigation guide that has been partially or completely replaced with the surgical 3D navigation guide to a party that is remote from the surgical procedure for separate and/or concurrent analysis to form an annotated copy of the 3D navigation guide.
With respect to claim 1, Lamprecht et al. teaches transmitting a copy of 3D images to a party that is remote from the surgical procedure (para [0031]-[0036], FIG. 1) for separate and/or concurrent analysis to form an annotated copy of the 3D image (para [0030] for example).
Therefore, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify Wong et al. to incorporate remote telestration in the manner taught by Lamprecht et al. in order to allow a teacher or instructor to provide comments and instructions to the operator regarding the surgical procedure (para [0030] of Lamprecht et al.).
With respect to claim 8, Lamprecht et al. teaches combining the annotated copy of the 3D image with the 3D image (para [0033]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Alexandra Newton Surgan whose telephone number is (571)270-1618. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8am-4pm EST.
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ALEXANDRA L. SURGAN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3795
/ALEXANDRA L NEWTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3799
