Appeal 2006-1914
Application 09/764,609
1 STATEMENT OF CASE
2 Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 (2002) from a final rejection
3 of claims 1-34 and 80-106.1 Subsequent to the final rejection, the
4 Appellants cancelled2 claims 2, 24, 30, 101, 103, and 104. Thus, claims 1,
5 3-23, 25-29, 31-34, 80-100, 102, 105, and 106 remain, and are under
6 rejection. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) (2002).
7 Appellants invented a system for displaying and guiding a series of
8 instruments to a surgical site located relative to a body of a patient.
9 (Specification 1.)
10 Claim 1 is representative of the invention and reads as follows:
11 1. A smart instrument for use in a surgery system, comprising:
12
13 a housing;
14
15 a plurality of light emitting diodes coupled to the housing
16 and being adapted to fire independently;
17
18 a memory circuit for storing information related to the
19 smart instrument; and
20
21 a wireless transceiver adapted to communicate with the
22 surgery system, wherein bi-directional communication of the
23 smart instrument with the surgery system is solely through a
24 wireless communication system and wherein the smart
25 instrument transmits the information stored on the memory
26 circuit in response to a received signal from the surgery system
27 when the smart instrument is placed within a field of detection.
28
1 Application filed January 17, 2001. The real party in interest is
Howmedica Liebinger, Inc. D/B/A Stryker Liebinger.
2 The Examiner entered the April 28, 2005 amendment canceling these
claims on May 11, 2005.
2
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