Ex Parte Kahlert et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 5, 2017

12515842 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 5, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O.Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
12/515,842 05/21/2009 Joachim Kahlert 2006P02143WOUS 3053
24737 7590 06/07/2017
PTTTT TPS TNTFT T FfTTTAT PROPFRTY fr STANDARDS
EXAMINER
465 Columbus Avenue NGANGA, BONIFACE N
Suite 340
Valhalla, NY 10595 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3769
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/07/2017 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
marianne. fox @ philips, com
debbie.henn @philips .com
patti. demichele @ Philips, com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JOACHIM KAHLERT,
MICHAEL PERKUHN, and JOSEF LAUTER
Appeal 2016-004857
Application 12/515,8421
Technology Center 3700
Before DONALD E. ADAMS, JEFFREY N. FREDMAN, and
JOHN G. NEW, Administrative Patent Judges.
ADAMS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) involves claims 1, 3—9, 11, 12,
and 14—20 (Ans. 3).2 * 4Examiner entered rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as “Koninklijke Philips N. V.”
(App. Br. 2.)
2 Claims 2, 10, and 13 stand canceled (see App. Br. 15, 16, and 18). As
presented in Appellants’ Brief: (i) Appellants’ claims 3 and 4 depend from
canceled claim 2. For the purposes of this Appeal, Appellants’ claims 3 and
4 were interpreted as depending on Appellants’ claim 1 and (ii) Appellants’
claim 11 depends from canceled claim 10. For the purposes of this Appeal,
we interpreted Appellants’ claim 11 as depending from Appellants’ claim 1.
Appeal 2016-004857
Application 12/515,842
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants disclose “an apparatus, a method and a computer program
for applying energy to an object, which allows acting on different parts of an
object differently” (Spec. 1). Claim 1 is representative and reproduced
below:
1. An apparatus for applying energy to an object, wherein the
apparatus comprises:
an arrangement of energy emitting elements for
outputting energy to the object, wherein at least some of the
energy emitting elements are configured to emit energy to the
object independently from each other, wherein the arrangement
of energy emitting elements comprises an abutting surface
during applying energy to the object, wherein the energy
emitting elements are located on the abutting surface at
different locations and wherein the abutting surface is abutable
against an object surface;
a model generation unit configured to generate an object
model representing the object for display of the object model
including display of a path on the object model for applying the
energy to the object along the path;
a control unit configured to select a portion of the energy
emitting elements based on the path for activation of the
selected portion of the selected energy emitting elements to
apply the energy to the object along the path; and
registration unit is configured to register the object model
with a model of the abutting surface,
wherein the control unit is further configured to activate
the selected energy emitting elements of the registered abutting
surface which are arranged along the path, to apply energy to
the object.
(App. Br. 14—15.)
2
Appeal 2016-004857
Application 12/515,842
The claims stand rejected as follows:
Claims 1, 6—9, 12, and 14—20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over the combination of Moll3 and Pearson.4
Claims 3—5 and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over the combination of Moll, Pearson, and He.5
Claim 11 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over the combination of Moll, Pearson, He, and Panescu.6
ISSUE
Does the preponderance of evidence relied upon by Examiner support
a conclusion of obviousness?
FACTUAL FINDINGS (FF)
FF 1. Moll “relates generally to robotically controlled systems, such as
telerobotic surgical systems, and more particularly to a robotic catheter
system for performing minimally invasive diagnostic and therapeutic
procedures” (Moll 12).
FF 2. Moll discloses the use of “a robotic guide catheter, and fluoroscopy
and ICE [] to visualize [] cardiac and other surrounding tissues, and
instrument objects,” wherein
a fluoroscopy image has been texture mapped upon a plane
configured to occupy nearly the entire display area in the
background. Visible in the fluoroscopy image as a dark
elongate shadow is the actual position, from fluoroscopy, of the
guide catheter instrument relative to the surrounding tissues.
Overlayed in front of the fluoroscopy plane is a cartoon
rendering [] of the predicted, or “commanded”, guide catheter
3 Moll et al., US 2006/0095022 Al, published May 4, 2006.
4 Pearson et al., US 2003/0212394 Al, published Nov. 13, 2003.
5 He et al., US 2005/0119647 Al, published June 2, 2005.
6Panescu et al., US 2003/0078494 Al, published Apr. 24, 2003.
3
Appeal 2016-004857
Application 12/515,842
instrument position. . . . [T]he various objects may be
registered to each other by manually aligning cartoon objects
with captured image objects in multiple views until the various
objects are aligned as desired. Image processing of markers
and shapes of various objects may be utilized to automate
portions of such a registration process.
(Moll 1337 (emphasis added); see Ans. 9.)
FF 3. Moll’s Figure 113 is reproduced below:
Moll’s FIG. 113 illustrates a user interface for a master input device in
accordance with some embodiments” of Moll’s disclosure (Moll 1115)
FF 4. Moll discloses, with reference to Moll’s FIG. 113:
if an operator is attempting to navigate a steerable catheter in
order to, for example, contact a particular tissue location with
the catheter’s distal tip, a useful primary navigation view (410)
may comprise a three dimensional digital model of the pertinent
tissue structures (414) through which the operator is navigating
the catheter with the master input device (12), along with a
representation of the catheter distal tip location (416) as viewed
along the longitudinal axis of the catheter near the distal tip.
This embodiment illustrates a representation of a targeted tissue
structure location (418), which may be desired in addition to the
tissue digital model (414) information. A useful secondary
4
Appeal 2016-004857
Application 12/515,842
view (412), displayed upon a different monitor, in a different
window upon the same monitor, or within the same user
interface window, for example, comprises an orthogonal view
depicting the catheter tip representation (416), and also perhaps
a catheter body representation (420), to facilitate the operator's
driving of the catheter tip toward the desired targeted tissue
location (418).
(Moll 1252; see generally Final Act. 6—7; Ans. 4—5.)
FF 5. Moll’s Figure 153 is reproduced below:
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