DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Election/Restrictions
Claims 1-6, 16-17 and 21-23 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 29 September 2025.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 7-8, 10-11 and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Yan (CN 108387560 A).
Regarding claim 7, Yan teaches a method for rapidly performing a Flourescence-Lifetime Imaging Microscopy measurement (fluorescence lifetime imaging system, Abstract) comprising:
Engaging a Continuous Ultrafast Time-resolving Imaging Detection (CUTID) sensor (MCP position sensitive anode detector, Abstract; continuous, [0065]; time-resolving, [0028]; imaging, [0029]; paragraph [0046] of the current specification defines a CUTID sensor as “any…sensor technology that provides photon-sensing events as a continuous, i.e. not gated or modulated, data stream at high rate”; “high rate” is a relative term and the detector of Yan is not apparently gated or modulated, thus can be considered a CUTID sensor) that delivers a continuous data stream (continuous reading, [0065]) of time-and-location tagged light detection events (storing photon position and arrival time, [0066]) at a rate sufficient to detect a plurality of light-detection events within the fluorescent lifetime of the molecular species of interest (counts photons arriving in each time period during the fluorescence lifetime curve, [0033]), enabling reconstruction of a fluorescence decay curve without time-gating.
Regarding claim 8, Yan teaches that the sensor has a sensitivity for detecting individual photons (photons are basic class of detection and coordinates and time are stored, [0039]).
Regarding claim 10, Yan teaches a system for performing imaging spectroscopy (spectroscopy, [0021]) comprising:
A detection sensor (MCP detector, Abstract) configured for detecting and providing a multi-dimensional data stream (continuous data reading, [0065]) of time-tagged and location-tagged detection (storing photon position and arrival time, [0066]).
Regarding claim 11, Yan teaches that the detection sensor is configured to provide a continuous data stream ([0066]) without time-gating or otherwise modulating a light sensitivity of the detection sensor.
Regarding claim 18, Yan teaches a method comprising:
Performing Fluorescence-Lifetime-Spectroscopy (fluorescence lifetime measurement, Abstract; spectroscopy, [0021]) with a time-resolving imaging detector (MCP detector, Abstract, detects and stores arrival time, [0066]) continuously ([0065]) without time-gating or otherwise modulating a light sensitivity of the imaging sensor.
Regarding claim 19, Yan teaches a method that the imaging sensor is configured to provide a time resolution sufficient to resolve a fluorescence-decay curve of molecules of interest (fluorescence lifetime curve reconstruction, [0068]) and the time resolution independently at each image location (time and location tagging, [0066]).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 9 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yan.
Regarding claims 9 and 20, Yan teaches all the limitations of claims 8 and 19 as described above. The system of Yan has sensitivity for individual photons as argued above.
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to set the sensitivity of the system of Yan such that noise events are detected at a rate below true photon events, as a matter of routine optimization of the sensitivity which can be tuned by one of ordinary skill in the art with the goal of minimizing the noise level of the data (by setting the sensitivity to be lower than a noise level) with no unexpected result.
Claims 12-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yan in view of Howard (US 20210191095 A1).
Regarding claim 12, Yan teaches that the detection sensor is configured for detecting a time dependence of the data stream (position and arrival time, [0066]) following optical excitation (excitation source 2).
Yan does not teach that the optical excitation is pulsed or otherwise modulated.
Howard teaches a fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy system which uses a modulated optical excitation beam ([0004]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art on or before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the system of Yan to have a modulated excitation beam based on the teaching of Howard that this is a known method of extracting a signal in an FLIM system with no unexpected result.
Regarding claim 13, Yan teaches that the detection sensor is a two-dimensional detection sensor (two-dimensional X-Y data is stored, [0068]).
Regarding claim 14, Yan teaches that the detection sensor is a CUTID sensor as argued above with reference to claim 7.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yan in view of Howard and in further view of Brubaker (US 9,835,741 B1).
Regarding claim 15, Yan and Howard do not teach that the continuous ultrafast time-resolving imaging detection sensor is a large area picosecond photodetector.
Brubaker teaches a particle imaging system having a large area picosecond photodetector (col. 4 lines 34-61).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the invention to modify the system of Yan to have the large-area picosecond photodetector of Brubaker, as a matter of substituting a known equivalent detector capable of time-resolved photon detection with good time resolution and no unexpected result.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 19 May 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The applicant argues that “Yan does not disclose a sensor that itself outputs a continuous multidimensional stream including image-location-tagged photon events” because “the X-Y position information is supplied externally by the acquisition system”. However the claim does not require that the photodetector itself provide the location tagging, only that the events be location-tagged. Further
Regarding the argument that Yan does not teach simultaneous multidimensional acquisition including image-location information directly from the sensor output, this is not clearly required by the current claims. However Yan does appear to acquire some position information from the sensor, and if this is not sufficient to meet the claim limitation then it should be noted that one of ordinary skill in the art could easily substitute a position-sensitive 2-D photodetector for the photodetector taught by Yan with no unexpected result as argued above.
Regarding the argument that Yan does not teach continuous ungated operation producing four-dimensional fluorescence data acquisition, Yan teaches a continuous data stream of events tagged with time, 2-D position and wavelength ([0028-0030]). While it is not described as “ungated”, there appears to be no modulation or gating mechanism disclosed in the system of Yan and it is not clear how the system differs in that respect from the current application.
Regarding the argument that “Yan’s sequential X-Y acquisition architecture is inherently much slower than Applicant’s parallel sensor-based spatial acquisition approach”, the examiner notes that the use of a parallel sensor which negates the requirement for sequential X-Y acquisition and scanning is not part of the present claims.
Regarding the argument that Yan does not teach “acquisition rates sufficient to capture multiple photon events within the fluorescent lifetime of the species of interest”, it appears that Yan teaches detection of multiple events within a single fluorescent lifetime to construct a fluorescence lifetime curve with multiple time bins (fig. 3).
Regarding the combination with Howard, Howard is relied upon only for the teaching of modulated excitation techniques which assist in detection of fluorescence events which would be obvious to combine with the fluorescence system of Yan.
Regarding the combination with Brubaker, it has been held that a prior art reference must either be in the field of the inventor' s endeavor or, if not, then be reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor was concerned, in order to be relied upon as a basis for rejection of the claimed invention. See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 24 USPQ2d 1443 (Fed. Cir. 1992). In this case one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to use the fast position-sensitive photon detector of Brubaker in a system for fluorescence detection, in order to solve the problem of providing quick and efficient position-sensitive detection of photons (from the fluorescence decay). As the operating principles of photodetectors are understood in the art the examiner believes that one of ordinary skill in the art could substitute the photodetector of Brubaker for that taught by Yan with no unexpected result.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 DAVID E SMITH whose telephone number is (571)270-7096. The examiner can normally be reached M to F 8:30 AM-5:00 PM.
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/DAVID E SMITH/Examiner, Art Unit 2881
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