PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15959594
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-04
Publication Date: 2018-08
Patent Classification: ["600", "114000"]

Abstract:
An endoscope particularly suited for endocranial procedures and a method of using the endoscope. In some examples the endoscope is rigid except for a bend/tilt portion near a distal end of a rigid tube that is inserted in a patient's cranium, which distal end is controlled in a degree and direction of tilt with a finger operated controller at the endoscope's handle. Some examples use telescoping tubes that allow customizing the endoscope size for specific procedures. A distal portion of the endoscope can be disposable, supplied in a sterile package for a single procedure, thus taking into account contamination dangers that are particularly high for intracranial and certain other interventions and the fact that it can be difficult or impossible to effectively autoclave heat-sensitive components of certain endoscopes or effectively sterilize them using other techniques.

Claim (Index 22):
A method of using an endocranial endoscope, comprising:\n providing an outer tube, a middle rigid tube telescoping within the outer tube between extended and retracted positions, a stopper spaced distally from the middle tube and biased in the distal direction, an inner tube within the middle tube and the stopper, said inner tube being shaped, dimensioned, and configured for insertion into a patient's cranium, and a suction/irrigation tube within the inner tube, configured to move between extended and retracted positions relative to the inner tube; inserting a distal portion of the inner tube into the cranium of a patient, through a prepared opening therein, until the stopper presses against the patient's cranium or a cranium-associated surface; selectively inserting the inner tube further against the biasing of the stopper; selectively extending the distal end of the suction/irrigation tube distally from the inner tube; selectively applying suction and irrigation to selected varying degrees to the suction/irrigation tube by user controllers of a handle mechanically secured to the outer tube; selectively illuminating a field of view in the patient's cranium with a light source at a distal end of the inner tube and imaging the field of view with a miniature video camera at a distal end of the inner tube; and displaying images taken with the video camera.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 17.0
- Percentile: 91.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.65517
- Patent Class: 600.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15364952', '12067804', '12923796', '13353154', '11544897']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.4238204391750711
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5695633046199848
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.4383947257195625
- Mean Citation Score: 269.16785
- Max Citation Score: 463.1192
- Similarity Product: 423.40828193540574

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test