Patent Document ID: 9330462
Application ID: 14250571
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. An object information acquiring apparatus that acquires information inside an object by receiving an acoustic wave that has arrived from inside the object through a layer having an acoustic impedance that is different from that of the object, and analyzing the acoustic wave, the object information acquiring apparatus comprising: an acoustic wave probe that receives an acoustic wave and converts the acoustic wave into an electric signal; a whole image generation unit that generates a whole image, which is an image indicating information inside the object, based on the electric signal after the conversion; a partial image generation unit that extracts a partial image, which is a part of the whole image, from the whole image; and a similar image search unit that searches an area similar to the partial image, from the whole image, wherein the similar image search unit searches an area similar to the partial image from a start position, which is a position where the partial image has been extracted, in a direction where the acoustic wave that has arrived from inside the object is reflected by the layer having acoustic impedance that is different from that of the object.