Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 13
Claim 1
Independent Claim
144 words
A method of measuring an antigen-antibody reaction comprising the steps of: preparing a suspension of insoluble microscopic carrier particles which carry at least an antigen, an antibody or a hapten; forming an agglutination promoting or agglutination inhibiting reaction system among said carrier particles based on an antigen-antibody reaction, using said suspension and one or more antigen, antibody or hapten; irradiating said agglutination promoting or agglutination inhibiting reaction system with light having a limited frequency bandwidth; detecting light scattered at one or more specific angles from said reaction system; selecting signals representative of one or more specific frequency bands from a spectrum signal representative of said scattered light, said specific frequency bands comprising limited frequency portions of the entire bandwidth of said spectrum signal; and analyzing the antigen, antibody or hapten in a specimen of interest based on one or more of said selected signals.
Claim 2
Independent Claim
144 words
A method of measuring an antigen-antibody reaction comprising the steps of: preparing a suspension of insoluble microscopic carrier particles which carry at least an antigen, an antibody or a hapten; forming an agglutination promoting or agglutination inhibiting reaction system among said carrier particles based on an antigen-antibody reaction, using said suspension and one or more antigen, antibody or hapten; irradiating said agglutination promoting or agglutination inhibiting reaction system with light having a limited frequency bandwidth; detecting light scattered at one or more specific angles from said reaction system; selecting signals representative of one or more specific frequency bands from a spectrum signal representative of said scattered light, said specific frequency bands comprising limited frequency portions of the entire bandwidth of said spectrum signal; and analyzing the antigen, antibody or hapten in a specimen of interest based on one or more of said selected signals.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
50 words
A method of measuring an antigen-antibody reaction according to claim 1, further comprising the step of measuring the quantity of said antigen, antibody or hapten by detecting scatter intensity spectra at two of said specific angles and computing the ratio between the selected signals representative of said specific frequency bands.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
60 words
A method of measuring an antigen-antibody reaction according to claim 1 or claim 2, further comprising the step of computing the ratio between scatter spectrum intensity signals of two of said specific frequency bands upon detecting a scatter intensity spectrum at one of said specific angles, in order to measure the quantity of antigen, antibody or hapten in the specimen.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
79 words
A method of measuring an antigen-antibody reaction according to claim 3, further comprising the steps of: detecting light scattered at two or more specific angles from said agglutination promoting or agglutination inhibiting reaction system; measuring intensity signals of specific frequency bands from respective ones of the obtained scatter spectrum signals; and computing the ratio between scatter spectrum intensity signals of respective ones of said specific frequency bands, thereby measuring the quantity of antigen, antibody or hapten in the specimen.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
89 words
A method of measuring an antigen-antibody reaction according to claim 4, further comprising the steps of: separating each scatter spectrum output at respective ones of said specific scatter angles into a high-frequency band component which possesses little scatter spectrum information and a low-frequency band component which possesses much scatter spectrum information, and subtracting said high-frequency band component from each of said low-frequency band components, and computing the ratio of the intensities of the resulting low-frequency band components, thereby measuring the quantity of antigen, antibody or hapten in the specimen.
Claim 7
Independent Claim
165 words
An apparatus for measuring an antigen-antibody reaction to determine the quantity of antigen, antibody or hapten in a specimen, which apparatus comprises: a light scattering cell for receiving a suspension of insoluble microscopic carrier particles which carry at least an antigen, an antibody or a hapten, and a specimen solution which includes at least an antigen, an antibody or a hapten for inducing an antigen-antibody reaction with said suspension; optical means for irradiating said scattering cell with light having a limited frequency bandwidth; photodetection means for receiving light, scattered from said cell, at one or more scatter angles and for generating an electrical output signal in response to said light; selection means for generating scatter spectrum intensity signals representative of one or more specific frequency bands of the electrical output signals of said photodetection means, said specific frequency bands comprising limited frequency portions of the entire bandwidth of said electrical output signals; and indicating means for providing an indication of said scatter spectrum intensity signals.
Claim 8
Independent Claim
165 words
An apparatus for measuring an antigen-antibody reaction to determine the quantity of antigen, antibody or hapten in a specimen, which apparatus comprises: a light scattering cell for receiving a suspension of insoluble microscopic carrier particles which carry at least an antigen, an antibody or a hapten, and a specimen solution which includes at least an antigen, an antibody or a hapten for inducing an antigen-antibody reaction with said suspension; optical means for irradiating said scattering cell with light having a limited frequency bandwidth; photodetection means for receiving light, scattered from said cell, at one or more scatter angles and for generating an electrical output signal in response to said light; selection means for generating scatter spectrum intensity signals representative of one or more specific frequency bands of the electrical output signals of said photodetection means, said specific frequency bands comprising limited frequency portions of the entire bandwidth of said electrical output signals; and indicating means for providing an indication of said scatter spectrum intensity signals.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
20 words
An apparatus for measuring an antigen-antibody reaction according to claim 6, in which said selection means comprises a band-pass filter.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
20 words
An apparatus for measuring an antigen-antibody reaction according to claim 7, in which said band-pass filter comprises a programmable filter.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
40 words
An apparatus for measuring an antigen-antibody reaction according to claim 6, further comprising means for measuring the ratio of said scatter spectrum intensity signal of the specific frequency band to a scatter spectrum intensity signal of virtually all frequency bands.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
30 words
An apparatus for measuring an antigen-antibody reaction according to claim 9, further including means for measuring the ratio between scatter spectrum intensity signals of two of said specific frequency bands.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
25 words
An apparatus for measuring an antigen-antibody reaction according to claim 6 or claim 7 wherein said selection means comprises means for detecting a noise signal.