DETAILED ACTION
The Examiner acknowledges the response received 27 August 2025. Claims 1-9 and 20 are withdrawn; claims 10-19 are pending.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 27 August 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The Applicant argues (pages 9-10, “Remarks”):
Stewart makes vague references to using machine learning to improve its automated detection techniques (see, e.g., id at [0073]), but nowhere does Stewart describe a plurality of physicians each performing manual LAT annotations using respective IEGM signals collected at their respective sub-systems and receiving, at a remote server, each manually annotated IEGM signal for the purpose of training an ANN to find LATs in future, non-annotated IEGM signals. As a result, Stewart fails to disclose at least, "receiv[ing], [at a remote server,] from electrophysiological laboratory sub-systems, first IEGM signals and corresponding local activation time annotations of the first IEGM signals manually annotated by respective annotation personnel,""train[ing] an artificial neural network to find local activation times of IEGM signals responsively to the first IEGM signals and the corresponding local activation time annotations," or "apply[ing] the trained artificial neural network to the received second IEGM signal to provide an indication of a local activation time of the received second IEGM signal," as recited in independent claim 10.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees with this assessment of Stewart. In previously cited par. 0092, Stewart discloses “human input can be a valuable addition to the data, and so when user input is provided it is necessary for the computer system to automatically propagate and apply it to more than one data point at a time.” The Examiner considers this to anticipate the invention as claimed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 10-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Stewart et al (U.S. 2018/0296108). Stewart discloses (Figure 1) a remote server (par. 0064-00764) including processing circuitry configured to: receive, from electrophysiological laboratory sub-systems, first IEGM signals (par. 0075-0078) and corresponding local activation time annotations of the first IEGM signals manually annotated by respective annotation personnel (par. 0073 and 0092); train an artificial neural network to find local activation times of IEGM signals responsively to the first IEGM signals and the corresponding local activation time annotations; receive a second IEGM signal; and apply the trained artificial neural network to the received second IEGM signal to provide an indication of a local activation time of the received second IEGM signal.
Regarding claim 2, Stewart discloses (Figure 1; par. 0064-0073) the electrophysiological laboratory sub-systems, each electrophysiological laboratory sub-system comprising: a catheter configured to be inserted into at least one cardiac chamber of at least one living subject, and to capture respective ones of the first IEGM signals from the at least one cardiac chamber; a display; and processing circuitry configured to: render the respective ones of the first IEGM signals to the display; receive the corresponding ones of the local activation time annotations of the displayed first IEGM signals manually annotated by a respective one of the annotation personnel; and provide the respective ones of the first IEGM signals and the corresponding ones of the local activation time annotations to the remote server.
Regarding claim 3, Stewart discloses (par. 0078) the processing circuitry is configured to: compute weights for annotations performed by respective ones of the annotation personnel responsively to a local activation time annotation experience level of the respective ones of the annotation personnel; and train the artificial neural network to find local activation times of IEGM signals responsively to the first IEGM signals and the corresponding local activation time annotations weighted according to respective ones of the computed weights of the respective ones of the annotation personnel who annotated respective ones of the local activation time annotations.
Regarding claim 13, Stewart discloses (par. 0100) the processing circuitry is configured to: search a database of scientific literature publications responsively to respective ones of the annotation personnel yielding respective numbers of search matches indicative of the local activation time annotation experience level of the respective ones of the annotation personnel; and compute the weights for the annotations performed by respective ones of the annotation personnel responsively to the respective numbers of search matches for the respective ones of the annotation personnel.
Regarding claim 14, Stewart discloses (par. 0100) the processing circuitry is configured to limit searching of the database to scientific literature publications describing local activation time annotation.
Regarding claim 15, Stewart discloses (par. 0100) the respective numbers of search matches are respective numbers of the scientific literature publications matching respective ones of the annotation personnel.
Regarding claim 16, Stewart discloses (par. 0143) the processing circuitry is configured to: input the first IEGM signals into the artificial neural network; and iteratively adjust parameters of the artificial neural network responsively to an output of the artificial neural network and the local activation time annotations of the first IEGM signals.
Regarding claim 17, Stewart discloses (par. 0101) the processing circuitry is configured to: minimize a loss function which is a function of the output of the artificial neural network and the local activation time annotations of the first IEGM signals weighted according to respective ones of the computed weights; and iteratively adjust the parameters of the artificial neural network responsively to minimizing the loss function.
Regarding claim 18, Stewart discloses (par. 0101) the loss function includes a binary cross entropy loss function.
Regarding claim 19, Stewart discloses (Figures 6-9) the processing circuitry is configured to generate an electroanatomic map responsively to the indication of the local activation time.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DEBORAH L MALAMUD whose telephone number is (571)272-2106. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 1:00-9:30 Eastern.
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/DEBORAH L MALAMUD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3792