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 .
Drawings
New corrected drawings in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in this application because FIGS. 2-4 fail to comply with line and shading requirements of 37 C.F.R. 1.84 (1 and m) and thus do not possess satisfactory reproduction characteristics as required by those sections. See MPEP 608.02.
An example of how a representation of the GUI may be illustrated with satisfactory reproduction characteristics may be seen in FIGS. 3-17 of the Oura ‘999 reference cited in the prior art rejections below.
Applicant is advised to employ the services of a competent patent draftsperson outside the Office, as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office no longer prepares new drawings. The corrected drawings are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. The requirement for corrected drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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 1-3, 5-6, 8, 16 and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being clearly anticipated by US 2020/0359999 A1 to Oura et al. (hereinafter “Oura ‘999”).
Regarding Claim 1, 16 and 28, Oura ‘999 teaches a medical information display system (10), comprising:
a communication interface (11), which is configured to communicatively connect with at least one monitoring device (30) or at least one ultrasonic device (20), wherein each monitoring device is configured to acquire vital sign information of a target object which is monitored by the monitoring device (see e.g. Para. 29: “The patient monitor 10 is configured to measure various vital signs based on vital sign signals sent from the various sensors 30 attached to a subject. The sensors 30 attached to the subject here serve as various sensors used for the measurement of the vital signs.”), and each ultrasonic device is configured to perform an ultrasonic examination on a target object and generate ultrasonic information of said target object (see e.g. Para. 30: “The ultrasonic measuring apparatus 20 is configured to acquire an ultrasonic image inside a body of a subject by placing a probe 21 in contact with (or brought close to) the body of the subject”);
a storage device (17), which is configured to store executable program instructions (see e.g. Para. 41: “The storage device 17 stores various programs”), as well as to store the vital sign information which is acquired by the monitoring device (see e.g. Para. 42: “The storage device 17 stores data (first data) in which the measured data (the measured values or the measured waveforms) of the vital signs acquired from the sensors 30 are made to correspond to the measurement dates and times”) and the ultrasonic information which is generated by the ultrasonic device (see e.g. Para. 42: “… and stores data (second data) in which the ultrasonic images captured by the ultrasonic measuring apparatus 20 are made to correspond to the image capture timings of the ultrasonic images (the dates and times when the ultrasonic images were measured));
a display device (16), which is configured to display the vital sign information and the ultrasonic information of one or more target objects (see e.g. Para. 39: “The display section 16 is configured to display measured waveforms or measured values of the various vital signs, ultrasonic images, etc. in accordance with control of the controller 14”);
one or more processors (14), which are configured to execute the program instructions which are stored in the storage device (see e.g. Para. 41: “The controller 14 properly reads the programs or the data from the storage device 17”) to enable the one or more processors to perform following steps:
obtaining the vital sign information which is acquired by the monitoring device and the ultrasonic information which is generated by the ultrasonic device through the communication interface (see e.g. Para. 43: “The controller 14 preforms action control of the patient monitor 10 (control of measurement through the sensors 30, reflection of various settings, import of an ultrasonic image, recording of measured values of vital signs, display control on the display section 16, etc.).”);
controlling the storage device to store the vital sign information and the ultrasonic information according to a timestamp (see e.g. Para. 44: “The controller 14 writes, into the storage device 17, the measured values of the various vital signs (blood pressure, a pulse count, body temperature, arterial oxygen saturation, a respiration rate, a respiration waveform, etc.) acquired through the sensors 30 in association with the measurement dates and times. The thing that the controller 14 continuously writes the measured values into the storage device 17 in association with the measurement dates and times is equivalent to the thing that the controller 14 stores the measured waveforms in association with the measurement dates and times. In addition, the controller 14 writes the ultrasonic images acquired by the ultrasonic measuring apparatus 20 into the storage device 17 in association with the image capture timings (the dates and times at which the images were taken or measured). The measurement dates and times are acquired with reference to data of the not-shown internal clock etc.”));
controlling the display device to provide a display observation interface, which comprises a plurality of display areas, wherein each display area correspondingly displays at least part of the vital sign information of one target object (see e.g. Para. 44: “The controller 14 displays, on the display section 16, a screen based on the data (the measured values of the vital signs and the ultrasonic images) stored in the storage device 17. Details of the display control will be described later with reference to FIG. 3 etc”; see e.g. FIG. 3);
when obtaining a selection instruction for one display area of the plurality of display areas, controlling the display device to display a detail interface of an interested target object, which corresponds to the selected display area, wherein the detail interface is set with a review hotkey (see generally m1-m5 and/or i1-i4, e.g. in FIGS. 3-10); and
when obtaining a review instruction for the review hotkey, controlling the display device to display a review interface for the interested target object on the detail interface, wherein the review interface is configured to display review information of the interested target object, and the review information comprises the vital sign information and the ultrasonic information of the interested target object; wherein, the ultrasonic information is displayed with the timestamp, or the vital sign information and the ultrasonic information are correlatively displayed based on the timestamp (see e.g. Para. 61: “the controller 14 may display the ultrasonic image and display together the measured values and/or the measured waveforms of the various vital signs acquired at the image capture timing of the ultrasonic image. Such a display example will be illustrated in FIG. 5. As illustrated in FIG. 5, the controller 14 displays a window d2 of the ultrasonic image, that includes not only the ultrasonic image corresponding to the selected image capture timing but also measured values (v4) of the various vital signs and an image capture timing (tm1). The measured values (v4) indicate measured values of the vital signs (e.g., measured values of the vital signs between 14:32:00 to 14:33:00) at the image capture timing (tm1)”).
Regarding Claim 2, see e.g. Paras. 54 and 57 and FIGS. 8-9.
Regarding Claim 3, see e.g. FIG. 5; also see all of FIGS. 3-17 which show a variety of different GUI configurations for displaying the data.
Regarding Claim 5, see e.g. FIGS. 11 and 14.
Regarding Claim 6, see e.g. FIGS. 5, 8 and 9; also see all of FIGS. 3-17 which show a variety of different GUI configurations for displaying the data.
Regarding Claim 8, see e.g. FIGS. 8-9.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 10-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oura ‘999 in view of WO 2020/031756 A1 to Oura et al. (hereinafter “Oura ‘756”).
Regarding Claims 10-12 and 15, Oura ‘999 teaches the system of claim 1 as discussed above, but fails to further teach obtaining and displaying timestamped historical video information and/or real-time video information. However, Oura ‘756 teaches an extremely similar analogous invention in which either timestamped historical and/or real time video can be displayed along with the other data (see “moving image” throughout Oura ‘756, e.g.: “With respect to the second image file, the same or similar process is performed. That is, the control unit 14 may store a moving image containing an ultrasonic image for a predetermined time period before the image recording timing, as the second image file, or store a moving image containing an ultrasonic image for a predetermined time period before and after the image recording timing, as the second image file; also see “real time” throughout Oura ‘756, e.g.: “the control unit 14 may generate a screen captured image of a screen on which information of vital signs (measurement waveforms or measurement values) and ultrasonic image that are displayed in real time, as a combined image file”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art as of Applicant's effective filing date to modify Oura ‘999 to provide for the collection and display of historical and/or real-time video data (using similar types of GUI interactions and presentations seen in either reference), as seen in Oura ‘756, because doing so would advantageously increase the total amount of useful diagnostic information collected and presented for display.
Regarding Claim 13, further see e.g. Paras. 49-50 of Oura ‘999 (in addition to the combination above for claims 10-12).
Regarding Claim 14, further see e.g. FIGS. 5D and 10C of Oura ‘756 as well as FIGS. 13-14 of Oura ‘999 (in addition to the combination above for claims 10-12).
Claim 18-21, 25 and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oura ‘999 in view of US 2015/0113422 A1 to Pfeiffer et al. (hereinafter “Pfeiffer”).
Regarding Claims 18-19, Oura ‘999 teaches the system of claim 1 including vital sign parameter information and vital sign parameter waveforms and the name of the patient as discussed above, but fails to specifically teach also displaying alarm event information, a patient support number and an identification code of the patient. Another reference, Pfeiffer, teaches an analogous patient vitals display in which medical information of multiple target objects/patients is displayed (see e.g. FIG. 6) including a comprehensive overview of patient information, vital sign data, any alarm/alerts, and multiple numbers/codes associated with the patient (see e.g. FIGS. 3, 7 and Paras. 17, 34, 66). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art as of Applicant's effective filing date to modify Oura ‘999 to provide the additional information for each patient seen in the GUI of Pfeiffer because it would increase the total amount of useful information being displayed.
Regarding Claims 20, 25 and 29, Oura ‘999 teaches all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above, many of which overlap with claim 20. However, Oura ‘999 fails to teach the additional limitations in claim 20 that information be displayed for a “plurality of target objects” (i.e. multiple patients), and that a selection instruction for one target object is received and then a detailed information display of the medical information of the selected target object occurs. Another reference, Pfeiffer, teaches an analogous patient vitals display in which medical information of multiple target objects/patients is displayed (see e.g. FIG. 6) and when a selection instruction for one target object/patient is received, the display device displays a detailed information view of the medical information of that selected target object/patient (see e.g. 710 in FIG. 7). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art as of Applicant's effective filing date to modify Oura ‘999 to provide a display of multiple patients’ medical information, and to allow the selection of a patient for a detailed view of that patient, as seen in Pfeiffer, because it would advantageously allow multiple patients to be monitored and allow a user of the display to retrieve more detailed information of a given patient on demand when needed.
Regarding Claim 21, see e.g. FIGS. 5, 8 and 9; also see all of FIGS. 3-17 which show a variety of different GUI configurations for displaying the data.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN R DOWNEY whose telephone number is (571)270-7247. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:30am-5:00pm ET.
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, NIKETA PATEL can be reached at (571)-272-4156. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JOHN R DOWNEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3792