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 .
DETAILED ACTION
The amendment filed on April 07, 2026 is acknowledged and entered. Claims 1, 6 and 11 are amended. Claims 2 and 12 is canceled. Claims 1 and 3-11 are pending and under examination in this Office action.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on April 07, 2026 has been entered.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on April 07, 2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Amendment
The rejection to claims 1, 3-7 and 11 under 35 U.S.C. 112(a), written description support is now withdrawn after reconsideration in view of Applicant’s arguments.
The rejection to claims 1, 3-7 and 11 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) is now withdrawn in view of the claim amendment. New ground of rejection to claims 1 and 3-11 is now made.
In view of the claim amendment, claims 1 and 11 are now rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a), written description support and 112(b).
The rejection to claims 1-5, 7 and 11-12 under 35 U.S.C. 103 is now withdrawn in view of the claim amendment.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1 and 3-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites in lines 14-16 “a/the particular interval” and “particular scan data” that render the scope of the claim indefinite. It is unclear which internal or what scan data should be or could be considered being the particular interval and the particular scan data.
Claim 1 recites in claim 14 “generating an image corresponding to a particular interval among the plurality of intervals based on particular scan data…”. Yet the claim does not recite the scan data being divided such that there is scan data corresponding to each time interval among the plurality of intervals being divided from the time interval, in other words, it is unclear what “particular scan data” refers to.
Claim 1 recite in claims 15-16 “…based on particular scan data of the scan data, that corresponds to the particular interval among the plurality of intervals” that renders the scope of the claim indefinite. It is unclear whether “that” refers to the particular scan data or the scan data.
The above rejections applies to claim 11 for the substantially identical limitations recited in claim 10. For examination purpose, claims 1 and 11 are interpreted according to the proposed claim amendment provided by the Examiner. Proposed amendment to claim 6 is also provided for the term “interval” to be amended to “time interval” as suggested for claims 1 and 11.
Claim 1. A medical image diagnosis apparatus, comprising: processing circuitry configured to:
obtain scan data generated by scanning an examined subject during a time period;
obtain pulse wave information of the examined subject while scanning the examined subject during the time period;
obtain electrocardiogram information of the examined subject;
estimate a phase shift between the pulse wave information and the electrocardiogram information of the examined subject;
correct a phase of the pulse wave information based on the estimated phase shift;
divide a time interval between two pulse wave peaks adjacent to each other in the pulse wave information whose phase has been corrected based on the estimated phase shift, into a plurality of time intervals;
perform a phase division on the scan data to divide the scan data according to the plurality of time intervals; and
generate an image corresponding to one time interval among the plurality of time intervals by reconstruct scan data corresponding to the one time interval among the plurality of time intervals
Claim 6. The medical image diagnosis apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:
generate a first image corresponding to a first time interval, among the plurality of time intervals, based on first scan data, of the scan data, that corresponds to the first time interval, and
generate a second image corresponding to a second time interval, among the plurality of time intervals, based on second scan data, of the scan data, that corresponds to the second time interval;
generate a time-volume curve related to a heart of the examined subject based on the first image and the second image; and
estimate the phase shift based on the time-volume curve.
Claim 11. An image reconstruction method, comprising:
obtaining scan data by scanning an examined subject during a time period;
obtaining pulse wave information of the examined subject while scanning the examined subject during the time period;
obtain electrocardiogram information of the examined subject;
estimating a phase shift between the pulse wave information and the electrocardiogram information of the examined subject;
correcting a phase of the pulse wave information based on the estimated phase shift;
dividing a time interval between two pulse wave peaks adjacent to each other in the pulse wave information whose phase has been corrected based on the estimated phase shift, into a plurality of time intervals; perform a phase division on the scan data to divide the scan data according to the plurality of time intervals; and
generating an image corresponding to one time interval among the plurality of time intervals by reconstruct scan data corresponding to the one time interval among the plurality of time intervals
Claim 8 recites in lines 6-7 “electrocardiogram synchronization”. It is unclear what synchronization it refers to, i.e., what object or what action the electrocardiogram collection is synchronizing to. This rejection also applies to claim 9 for the same term recited at the end of claim 9.
Claim 8 recites in lines 6-8 “perform image reconstruction…by using the pulse wave information and the scan data” that renders the scope of the claim indefinite. The pulse wave information is characteristics associated with waveforms, and scan data is pixel signals that may be reconstructed to generate an image. It is unclear how the pulse wave information and the scan data may be used together to perform the image reconstruction.
Claim 8 recites in lines 12-13 “shift an initial phase…multiple times toward past at determined time intervals” that renders the scope of the claim indefinite. The meaning of this limitation is unclear. It is unclear what amount the initial phase is shifted when it is shifted multiple times. It is unclear what “toward past” refers to – whether it is toward (i.e., approaching) or past (i.e., over). And it is unclear what it means by “toward past at predetermined time intervals” – whether it means that the shifting is performed until the amount of shifting is over a predetermined range? Yet the “time intervals” is recited in a plural form. Hence Examiner cannot make a reasonable interpretation for this limitation.
Claim 8 recites in lines 14-15 “generate a plurality of reconstruction images corresponding to how many times the shift was made” that renders the scope of the claim indefinite. It is unclear what it means by “corresponding to how many times the shift was made” – does it mean that for each shift there is one image generated, and the number of images generated depends on how many times the shift is performed? Or depending on the number of times the shift was made, the way the image reconstruction is performed is different? Examiner also cannot make a reasonable interpretation for this limitation.
Claim 8 recites in lines 15-16, the term “the scan data included in two or more of the initial phases that were shifted” lacks proper antecedent basis. In the entire claim, there is only one scan data being recited in line 3 referring to scan data of the examined subject. Further, “the initial phase” refers to a single time point. No matter how many times it is shifted, it is still a single time point. It is unclear what it means by having the scan data included in a single time point. Examiner also cannot make a reasonable interpretation for this limitation.
The above rejections to claim 8 are also applied to claim 10 for the substantially identical limitations recited in claim 10.
The dependent claims of the above rejected claims are rejected due to their dependency.
Examiner’s Notes
Claims 1 and 3-11 are not rejected under prior art. They would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(b), set forth in this Office action.
The final allowable subject matter will be determined when the claim languages are corrected to address all the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(b).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments in regard to the rejections presented in the previous Office action have been fully considered and they are persuasive. In view of the clam amendment, the previously issued rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) and 103 are all withdrawn. However, new grounds of rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) to the pending claims are now made in view of the claim amendment, and after reconsideration.
Examiner proposed claim amendment for claims 1, 6 and 11 are presented as a suggestion to the Applicant to address the indefiniteness issues.
Based on the above consideration, claims 1 and 3-11 are rejected.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YI-SHAN YANG whose telephone number is (408) 918-7628. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8am-4pm PST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Pascal M Bui-Pho can be reached at 571-272-2714. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/YI-SHAN YANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3798
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