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 .
This action is responsive to the Applicant’s amendments filed on 10/08/2025. Claims 1-20 remain pending in the application. Claims 1, 5-11, and 15-20 have been amended. Any examiner’s note, objection, and rejection not repeated is withdrawn due to Applicant’s amendment.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 09/24/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Examiner’s Note
The Examiner cites particular columns, paragraphs, figures, and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may also apply. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the Applicant fully consider the references in its entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
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 1-3, 5-6, 8, 10-13, 15-16, 18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wolf et al. (US 10729502 B1) hereafter referred to as Wolf, in view of Sachdeva et al. (US 20200066391 A1) hereafter referred to as Sachdeva, further in view of Liu et al. (US 20180349212 A1) hereafter referred to as Liu, further in view of Jin et al. (US 20240013895 A1) hereafter referred to as Jin. Wolf teaches:
A device comprising:
a processor (Col. 9, lines 41-52) configured to: receive a plurality of surgical data parameters associated with a patient (Col. 98, lines 8-19; where the input parameters including various characteristics and surgical data corresponds to the applicant’s plurality of surgical data parameters);
and using a machine learning model (Col. 202, lines 34-46; “In various embodiments, determining the predicted outcome may include using a machine learning model”).
Wolf does not teach wherein the plurality of surgical data parameters is of a first surgical data individuality level and a first surgical data magnitude, identifying a process for processing surgical data parameters based on the first surgical data magnitude or first surgical data individuality level, determining a location of the identified processing device, transforming the plurality of surgical data parameters such that the surgical data parameters is associated with a second surgical data magnitude and second surgical data individuality level being different from the first surgical data magnitude and first individuality level, or sending the transformed plurality of surgical data parameters to the identified processing device.
However, Sachdeva teaches:
the plurality of surgical data parameters comprises a first data individuality level (Paragraph 38; a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize the hierarchical levels of access to data as a form of security such that data requiring “high” security in the hierarchy would be related to data with “high” data individuality level and would thus arrive at utilizing a labeled parameter to define what level of security to utilize in accordance with the hierarchical level of access needed, corresponding to the applicant’s first data individuality level);
determine a second surgical data individuality level (Paragraph 38; a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize the hierarchical levels of access to data as a form of security such that data requiring “high” security in the hierarchy would be related to data with “high” data individuality level and would thus arrive at utilizing a labeled parameter to define what level of security to utilize in accordance with the hierarchical level of access needed, calculating the individuality level multiple times corresponding to the applicant’s second data individuality level).
Wolf and Sachdeva are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of healthcare informatics. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the teachings of Wolf with Sachdeva to have the plurality of surgical data parameters comprise a first data individuality level. Utilizing a parameter to represent the risk level of a particular set of data would be a routine design decision for secure data management.
Wolf in view of Sachdeva does not teach wherein the plurality of surgical data parameters is also of a first surgical data magnitude, identifying a process for processing surgical data parameters based on the first surgical data magnitude or first surgical data individuality level, determining a location of the identified processing device, transforming the plurality of surgical data parameters such that the surgical data parameters is associated with a second surgical data magnitude and second surgical data individuality level being different from the first surgical data magnitude and first individuality level, or sending the transformed plurality of surgical data parameters to the identified processing device.
However, Liu teaches:
the plurality of surgical data parameters comprises a first data magnitude (Paragraph 147; where data flow size corresponds to the applicant’s data magnitude);
identify a processing device for processing the plurality of surgical data parameters, wherein the processing device is identified based at least on the first plurality of surgical data parameters wherein the processing device and the hierarchical level are identified based at least on the first plurality of surgical data parameters and an acceptable latency value (Paragraphs 147 and 148; the identification of a task processing destination within data flow information encompasses the identification of a “destination distributed computing node” from Paragraph 126, analogous to the applicant’s processing device. Paragraphs 112-113 disclose latency values; “controller 650 is configured to monitor the available network nodes 510, the network topology, and the like. In some embodiments, the controller 650 is configured to receive network performance data from the network nodes 510 or otherwise from the system 600”, where “network performance data can include data connection statuses, bandwidths, latencies”);
determine a location of the identified processing device (Paragraph 147; “In some embodiments, task placement information may identify a data processing location”. The identification of a data processing location encompassing a destination distributed computing node corresponds to the applicant’s determining a location of an identified processing device);
determine a second surgical data magnitude (Paragraph 147; where data flow size corresponds to the applicant’s data magnitude which may be calculated again to determine a second magnitude.);
transform, based on the determined location of the processing device, the plurality of surgical data parameters such that the transformed plurality of surgical data parameters is associated with second parameters, wherein the second parameters are different than the first parameters (Paragraph 147; data flow management based on task assignment and relocation would require parameter transformation to be necessitated upon reassignment and relocation to redefine parameters for the new task/location. Task placement information and data processing location corresponds to the applicant’s determined location of the processing device. Changing the processing location/task context would cause a person of ordinary skill in the art to recognize that the parameters must also change to fit the new location/task, corresponding to the applicant’s second parameters that differ from the first);
and send the transformed plurality of surgical data parameters to the identified processing device (Paragraph 149; the receiving and sending of request responses corresponds to the applicant’s sending parameters to an identified device).
Wolf, Sachdeva, and Liu are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of healthcare informatics. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the teachings of Wolf in view of Sachdeva with Liu to additionally have the plurality of surgical data parameters also of be a first surgical data magnitude, identify a process for processing surgical data parameters based on the first surgical data magnitude or first surgical data individuality level, determine a location of the identified processing device, transform the plurality of surgical data parameters such that the surgical data parameters is associated with a second surgical data magnitude and second surgical data individuality level being different from the first surgical data magnitude and first individuality level, and send the transformed plurality of surgical data parameters to the identified processing device. A person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that utilization of surgical data magnitude and individuality level to identify a processing device for processing surgical data parameters would allow for selection of an optimal processing device for the given data, avoiding bottlenecks due to insufficient processing power or underutilization of system resources due to an excess of processing power. Further, a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that magnitude and individuality level parameters would allow the efficient determination of processing priority, resource routing, and privacy protocol decisions, in combination, allowing a system to apply task-based routing logic to the field of surgical data processing. A person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize the use of latency values to only allow systems with acceptable parameters as an implementation of known thresholding practices on the network performance data taught by Liu, yielding the expected result of optimal data processing.
While Sachdeva implies a hierarchical level, Wolf in view of Sachdeva, further in view of Liu does not teach an explicit hierarchical level associated with the processing device.
However, Jin teaches:
based on at least the hierarchical level associated with the processing device (Paragraph 64; “identify the location and status of medical devices are synchronized with respect to each other, and securely encrypts and transmits patient data between regions. A further improvement is realized as the systems and methods herein identify the location of a medical device and request patient data from and/or push patient data to another region without exposing protected patient data to any personnel”, where the delineation of what regions containing medical devices, corresponding to the processing device, are or are not allowed to have protected patient data corresponds to being based on the hierarchical level);
a hierarchical level associated with the processing device (Paragraph 64; “identify the location and status of medical devices are synchronized with respect to each other, and securely encrypts and transmits patient data between regions. A further improvement is realized as the systems and methods herein identify the location of a medical device and request patient data from and/or push patient data to another region without exposing protected patient data to any personnel”, where the selection of regions in which medical devices are located that expose patient data to personnel are boundaries such that regions at a particular security level, corresponding to a sufficiently high hierarchical level, are selected).
Wolf, Sachdeva, Liu, and Jin are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of healthcare informatics. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the teachings of Wolf in view of Sachdeva further in view of Liu with Jin to have identified a hierarchical level associated with the processing device. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized the identification of a hierarchical level to be a known method and applying it to the processing devices would have yielded the predictable result of allowing only devices with particular hierarchy levels or higher to process sensitive information.
Claim 11 contains the same limitations as those of claim 1, directed towards a method. Claim 11 is rejected for similar reasons as those of claim 1.
Regarding claim 5, Wolf in view of Sachdeva, further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin teaches the device of claim 1. Wolf teaches:
a plurality of surgical data (Col. 98, lines 8-19; where parameters including various characteristics and surgical data corresponds to the applicant’s plurality of surgical data parameters);
and the surgical data parameters are anonymized (Col. 60, lines 12-18; where the alphanumerical string anonymizing the patient for privacy purposes corresponds to the applicant’s anonymizing surgical data parameters).
Liu teaches:
a subset of a second plurality of surgical data (Paragraph 147; the management of data flow based on task assignment and relocation would be recognized by a person of ordinary skill in the art as requiring parameter transformation. A person of ordinary skill in the art would understand data flow as not receiving the entire data set at once, corresponding to the applicant’s subset of data).
and a size of the subset of the second plurality of surgical data parameters is based on a location of the processing device (Paragraph 147; where the task placement information includes data flow information. The data flow information corresponds to the size of the data flow which is based on the source and destination of the identified processing device, corresponding to the applicant’s size of the subset of the transformed plurality of surgical data parameters being based on the location of the identified processing device).
Claim 15 contains the same limitations as those of claim 5, directed towards a method. Claim 15 is rejected for similar reasons as those of claim 5.
Regarding claim 6, Wolf in view of Sachdeva, further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin teaches the device of claim 5. Wolf teaches:
wherein the subset of the second plurality of surgical data parameters comprises at least one of redacted surgical data parameters, randomized surgical data parameters, aggregated surgical data parameters, summarized surgical data parameters, averaged surgical data parameters, or surgical data parameters represented by a range (Col. 28, lines 48-51; “aggregated data from previous surgical procedures with similar decision making junctions may be used to predict the outcome of the alternative possible decisions associated with the marker” encompasses the applicant’s aggregated surgical data parameters element).
Claim 16 contains the same limitations as those of claim 6, directed towards a method. Claim 16 is rejected for similar reasons as those of claim 6.
Regarding claim 8, Wolf in view of Sachdeva, further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin teaches the device of claim 1. Wolf teaches:
wherein the machine learning model is trained using at least one of the following: a surgical data set gathered from previous surgical procedures, previous surgical data parameters associated with the previous surgical procedures, simulated surgical data parameters associated with a simulated surgical procedure, or a resource availability associated with the processing device (Col. 54, lines 8-16; “historical data may include information stored as numerical values representing at least one aspect of the historical surgical footage. In an additional example, the historical data may include statistical information and/or statistical model based on an analysis of the historical surgical footage. In yet another example, the historical data may include a machine learning model trained using training examples, and the training examples may be based on the historical surgical footage”, corresponding to the applicant’s surgical data set gathered from previous surgical procedures).
Claim 18 contains the same limitations as those of claim 8, directed towards a method. Claim 18 is rejected for similar reasons as those of claim 8.
Regarding claim 2, Wolf in view of Sachdeva, further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin teaches the device of claim 1. Jin teaches:
wherein the processing device is located inside or outside a protected network (Paragraph 64; a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that systems involving synchronization and encryption between regions would be understood by a person of ordinary skill in the art as accounting for different trust boundaries, such as data transferal across protected or unprotected networks, analogous to the applicant’s inside out outside a protected network).
Wolf, Sachdeva, Liu, and Jin are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of informatics. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the teachings of Wolf in view of Sachdeva further in view of Liu with Jin to have the processing device located inside or outside a protected network. Motivation for the combination would come from the need to preserve data confidentiality across network boundaries and to implement data access controls accordingly.
Claim 12 contains the same limitations as those of claim 2, directed towards a method. Claim 12 is rejected for similar reasons as those of claim 2.
Regarding claim 3, Wolf in view of Sachdeva, further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin teach the device of claim 2. Jin teaches:
wherein a protection level associated with the processing device is lower than a protection level associated with the device (Paragraph 64; the central service center, corresponding to the applicant’s device, is external to the secure hospital network in which the medical device is located and performs the facilitation of secure transfer of data between regions. The level of trust required to perform that facilitation would be understood by a person of ordinary skill in the art as requiring a higher security level than that of the devices it manages, corresponding to the applicant’s device having a higher protection level than that of the processing device).
Claim 13 contains the same limitations as those of claim 3, directed towards a method. Claim 13 is rejected for similar reasons as those of claim 3.
Regarding claim 10, Wolf in view of Sachdeva, further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin teaches the device of claim 1. Wolf teaches:
a plurality of surgical data parameters (Col. 98, lines 8-19; where various characteristics and surgical data used as input parameters corresponds to the applicant’s plurality of surgical data parameters).
Jin teaches:
transforming parameters based on a rule set (Col. 11, lines 56-67; where inputs are transformed using rules and inferred outputs are made based on the outputs of such transformations. Therefore, a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize as obvious to apply a transformation based on a rule set to surgical data parameters and be motivated to do so to preprocess data for analysis, encompassing routine implementation of data transformation techniques).
Claim 20 contains the same limitations as those of claim 10, directed towards a method. Claim 20 is rejected for similar reasons as those of claim 10.
Claims 4 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wolf in view of Sachdeva, further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin, further in view of Frederick et al. (US 9202008 B1) hereafter referred to as Frederick.
Wolf in view of Sachdeva, further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin teach the device of claim 2. Wolf in view of Sachdeva, further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin does not teach wherein the protected network is a HIPAA-based network comprising at least one healthcare facility.
However, Frederick teaches:
wherein the protected network is a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-based network comprising at least one healthcare facilities (Col. 15, lines 39-51; “secure data transmission that is compatible with HIPAA and HCFA guidelines will be implemented using a virtual private network” corresponds to the applicant’s HIPAA-based network. Secure transmission is provided by an IT department associated with a healthcare facility, corresponding to the applicant’s healthcare facility).
Wolf, Sachdeva, Liu, Jin, and Frederick are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of healthcare informatics. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the teachings of Wolf in view of Sachdeva further in view of Liu further in view of Jin with Frederick to have the protected network be a HIPAA-based network comprising at least one healthcare facility. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform this combination in order to conform with HIPAA standards in healthcare.
Claim 14 contains the same limitations as those of claim 4, directed towards a method. Claim 14 is rejected for similar reasons as those of claim 4.
Claims 7 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wolf in view of Sachdeva, further in view of Liu, further in view of Mukherjee (US 20230306296 A1).
Regarding claim 7, Wolf in view of Sachdeva, further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin teach the device of claim 1. Liu teaches:
wherein the processing device is identified based on parameters (Paragraphs 147 and 148; the receiving of task placement information from the manager corresponding to parameters of the task where this information identifies the data processing location corresponds to the applicant’s processing device being identified based on parameters).
Wolf in view of Sachdeva further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin does not teach that the parameters encompass at least one of processing capability associated with the processing device, memory capability of the processing device, a sensitivity to latency in processing the plurality of surgical parameters and intended use of the plurality of surgical parameters.
However, Mukherjee teaches:
the parameters encompass at least one of:
processing capability associated with the processing device, memory capability of the processing device, a sensitivity to latency in processing the first plurality of surgical data parameters and intended use of the first plurality of surgical data parameters (Paragraph 45; “speeds of processing” corresponding to the applicant’s processing capability, “memory statistics” corresponding to the applicant’s memory capability, “latencies in processing data” corresponding to the applicant’s sensitivity to latency in processing, and identification based on whether a device is “near a state in which they will not be able to appropriately process data and information in their intended manner” corresponding to the applicant’s intended use of the first plurality of surgical data parameters).
Wolf, Sachdeva, Liu, Jin, and Mukherjee are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of informatics. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the teachings of Wolf in view of Sachdeva further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin with Mukherjee to have the parameters encompass processing capability, memory capability, latency sensitivity, and intended use. A person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize these parameters would allow for identification of optimal processing devices such that processing bottlenecks due to a lack of processing capability and idle processing devices due to an excess of processing capability do not occur.
Claim 17 contains the same limitations as those of claim 7, directed towards a method. Claim 17 is rejected for similar reasons as those of claim 7.
Claims 9 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wolf in view of Sachdeva, further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin, further in view of Kim (US 20230396680 A1).
Regarding claim 9, Wolf in view of Sachdeva, further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin teach the device of claim 1. Wolf in view of Sachdeva further in view of Liu, further in view of Jin does not teach wherein the device is a surgical hub, an edge server, a fog server or a smart surgical instrument, and the identified processing device is an edge server, a fog server, or a cloud server.
However, Kim teaches:
wherein the device is a surgical hub, an edge server, a fog server or a smart surgical instrument, and the identified processing device is an edge server, a fog server, or a cloud server (Paragraph 125; where the edge configuration server corresponds to the applicant’s device being an edge server and the edge enable server corresponds to the applicant’s identified processing device being an edge server).
Wolf, Sachdeva, Liu, Jin, and Kim are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of informatics. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the teachings of Wolf in view of Sachdeva further in view of Liu further in view of Jin with Kim to have the device be a surgical hub, an edge server, a fog server or a smart surgical instrument, and the identified processing device is an edge server, a fog server, or a cloud server. A person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the use of edge servers would allow processing of data geographically closer to where the data originated from, thus allowing for lower latency in support of latency-critical applications.
Claim 19 contains the same limitations as those of claim 9, directed towards a method. Claim 19 is rejected for similar reasons as those of claim 9.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 10/08/2025 have been fully considered but some are not persuasive. Applicant’s arguments are summarized below:
Applicant submits that claims 1-20 are patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Applicant submits that independent claims 1 and 11 are patentable over the amended features recited by claims 1 and 11.
Dependent claims are submitted as allowable at least due to their dependency on independent claims 1 and 11.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees with points B and C.
The step of using a machine learning model, as recited in independent claims 1 and 11, cannot reasonably be performed in the human mind. Therefore, the claim does not recite an abstract idea. The analysis of claims 1 and 11 stops at step 2A, prong one, with a conclusion of eligibility. Accordingly, the rejections of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 101 are withdrawn.
With respect to Applicant’s arguments about tracking and storing metadata for computational tasks and their data flows (Remarks, Page 15, paragraph 1), the citation of Liu (Paragraph 147) indicates that data flow management based on task assignment and relocation would cause a person of ordinary skill in the art to recognize that parameter transformation is necessitated upon reassignment and relocation to redefine parameters for the new task/location. This is further supported by Paragraph 108 which discloses that data is ”received and stored and/or buffered in an input buffer 647 at the destination network node 510B until they are processed and forwarded to the destination distributed computing node 530D” where the data being processed necessarily yields a second plurality of data containing its own individuality level and magnitude post-processing. In particular, the transformation of data for processing at another data flow location represents the step of data transformation. The Examiner notes that the transform step from one such individuality level and magnitude to a second individuality level and magnitude occurs naturally as a result of virtually any such transformation step applied to an original data set.
Independent claims 1 and 11 remain rejected for the reasons stated above. Therefore, contrary to Applicant's arguments, because the dependent claims depend from an unpatentable claim and does not add limitations that overcome the rejection, it likewise remains rejected.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Rab et al. (US 20180276341 A1) discusses granular levels of access to medical data.
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 KENNETH P TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-6926. The examiner can normally be reached M-TH 5:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. PT, F 5:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. PT, or at Kenneth.Tran@uspto.gov.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, April Blair can be reached at (571) 270-1014. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/KENNETH P TRAN/ Examiner, Art Unit 2196
/APRIL Y BLAIR/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2196