The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 30, 2013
Filed:
Jan. 25, 2012
Hiroki Moriyama, Akishima, JP;
Yoshitaka Umemoto, Hachioji, JP;
Hiroki Moriyama, Akishima, JP;
Yoshitaka Umemoto, Hachioji, JP;
Olympus Medical Systems Corp., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An endoscope system includes an image pickup section, provided in an endoscope, which performs image pickup, a determining section that determines whether a specific observation object exists inside an image pickup region of the image pickup section, a recognizing section that determines whether the specific observation object can be recognized as an image from the picked-up image in the image pickup region picked up by the image pickup section, a low visibility determination output section that determines, when the determining section determines that the specific observation object exists inside the image pickup region and the recognizing section cannot recognize the specific observation object as an image, that the image pickup section is in a low visibility condition and outputs a low visibility determination result, and an obstacle estimation section that estimates an obstacle or a type of obstacle which causes the low visibility according to the low visibility determination result.