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. 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. Response to Amendment This Action is responsive to the Reply filed on 28 January 2026 (“Reply”). As directed in the Reply: no c laims have been amended; no c laims have been and/or remain cancelled; and no c laims have been added. Thus, claims 1-20 are presently pending in this application, with Claims 5-7 , 9 , and 13-15 being withdrawn from consideration (see below). Election/Restrictions Applicant’s election without traverse of Species and B and III in the R eply is acknowledged. During a telephone conversation between the Examiner and Joseph Hetz, Msgr. Hetz corrected a typographical error in the Reply and confirmed that the election was , in part, of Species “B,” Claim 8. Claims 5-7 , 9 , and 13-15 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected species , there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the R eply. Claim 5 is withdrawn because the elected “cap” species has no motor , and Claims 13-15 are withdrawn because they relate to the non-elected valve species . Claim Objections Claim s 3 and 20 are objected to because of the following informalities: in Claim 3, at line 2, “distal” should be proximal ; and in Claim 20, line 1, “further comprising” should be “wherein the” for the claim to make sense grammatically. While the foregoing issues with the claims do not, in the current view of the Examiner, rise to a level necessitating a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b), if Applicant asserts that the accused terms and phrases of the claim(s) are entirely unobjectionable and the Examiner disagrees, the objection may be changed to a rejection under sec. 112(b) because Applicant’s and the Examiner’s interpretations of the claims may therefore be at issue, and the scope of the claim would thus be unclear. Appropriate correction is thus required . Claim Interpretation The pending claims are given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification, as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art. The words of the claims are given their plain the ordinary and customary meaning given to the term by those of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the patent application, unless such meaning is inconsistent with the specification. The only exceptions to giving the words in a claim their ordinary and customary meaning in the art are: (1) when the applicant acts as their own lexicographer; and (2) when the applicant disavows or disclaims the full scope of a claim term in the specification. See M.P.E.P. § 2111. Claim 1 recites, inter alia, “perform an air-purging operation” as a limitation on the program instructions executed by the one or more processors; however, the claim does not recite that there is air in the claimed tubing. Thus, the “air-purging operating by supply a fluid” has been treated as “supplying a fluid” which could purge air from the tubing, were air in the tubing. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112 The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a): (a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention. The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112: The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention. 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. Claim s 1-4, 8, and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. As discussed below concerning sec. 112(b), Claim 1 attributes to the processor alone the function of “supplying a fluid.” Based on the underlying disclosure, the disclosed processors do not, in fact, supply a fluid; instead, they create a signal which is interpreted by other hardware, such as a pump, which in turn supplies fluid downstream. The Examiner is otherwise unaware of any processors per se which are capable of “supplying a fluid,” and the disclosure is silent about such a processor. Accordingly, there is not sufficient evidence in the record that the inventors had possession of the entirety of the subject matter of Claim 1, particularly including a processor per se which ‘supplies a fluid.’ Claims 2-4, 8, and 10 depend from Claim 1, inherit but do not cure the foregoing deficiencies, and therefore are also rejected. Claim s 1-4, 8, and 10 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Claim 1, lines 5-9, require that one or more processors are caused, by the program instructions, to “perform an air-purging operation by supplying a fluid ” (emphasis added), and therefore that the processor per se supplies fluid; however, the underlying specification, which informs the reader’s understanding of the claims, indicates that the processor instead communications with other hardware which, in turn, supplies fluid. Accordingly, the scope of the term “processor” is indefinite, because it is not clear if it covers only a traditional chip-based (or the like) processor, or extends to include additional hardware which actually are capable of “supplying a fluid,” such as a syringe. The later clause “causing pressure in the patient line” does not suffer from this lack of clarity, because processors are known to broadly “cause” physical manipulations to occur, inasmuch as a processor can generate an electronic signal which begins a process which ends in, e.g. , pressure being changed in a patient line. The claim clause “perform an air-purging operation by supplying a fluid at a first pressure into a tubing connected to the injection system” has been interpreted to mean “perform an operation which, when the processor is in control communication with a fluid pump in fluid communication with a tubing connected to the injection system, causes air present in the tubing to be purged;” “the tubing” is considered to be within the scope of the claim because the original text of the claim positively states that the tubing is “connected” to the system and is not conditional. In Claim 1, last two lines, “the patient line” lacks a positive antecedent basis, making it unclear if it is within the scope of the claim or not; it has been treated as not being within the scope of the claim. Claims 2-4, 8, and 10 depend from Claim 1, inherit but do not cure the foregoing deficiencies, and therefore are also rejected. 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. (a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Claims 1 -4 , 10, 19, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(1) ,(2) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2022 / 0054735, by Bakken (“Bakken”) . Bakken describes a system as claimed by Applicant, as follows. Claim 1 : An injection system comprising: one or more processors (24) ; a non-transitory computer-readable medium (248; see [0035]) ; and program instructions stored on the non-transitory computer-readable medium that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to ([0035], memory stores instructions to operate the system) : perform an air-purging operation by supplying a fluid at a first pressure into a tubing (109 , 126 ) connected to the injection system (see treatments above; 502, injection of fluid during lower diastolic phase) ; and perform a pre-stressing operation on the tubing by causing pressure in the patient line to increase to a second pressure greater than the first pressure (512 injection of fluid during higher systolic phase; because the tubing is formed of a thermoelastic material, it will expand at least a de minimus amount and thus be pre-stressed before the next injection) . Claim 2 : (The injection system of Claim 1, ) wherein the tubing comprises a patient line (126) and/or a day set. Claim 3 : (The injection system of Claim 1, ) wherein the tubing comprises a patient line (126) , and the injector system further comprises a port (Fig. 1, cylindrical connector under ref. no. 109) configured to receive a distal [sic: proximal] end of the patient line (actually does receive that proximal end) . Claim 4 : (The injection system of Claim 3, w herein the port is sized to receive a protective cap on the distal end of the patient line (cap per se not claimed; the disclosed port is fully capable of receiving a cap) . Claim 10 : (The injection system of Claim 1, ) wherein the program instructions, w hen executed by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to: perform the air-purging operation and/or the pre-stressing operation automatically, thereby allowing a user to attend to another task durin g the air-purging operation and/or the pre- stressing operation (Fig. 5, [0019]-[0020] no user intervention required as part of the algorithm) . Claim 19 : An injection system comprising: means for priming a tubing used with the injection system ( peristaltic pump 112 operated during diastole) ; and means for deforming the tubing by expanding its inner diameter before the tubing is used by the injection system to inject a fluid in a patient ( peristaltic pump 112 operated during systole) . Claim 20 : (The injection system of Claim 19, ) further comprising: means for deforming comprises means for restricting a flow out of the tubing (valve 124) . 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. 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. Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bakken as applied to Claim 1, above, and further in view of U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2015 / 0064036 , by Eberhard (“Eberhard”) . Bakken describes a device substantially as claimed by Applicant; see above. It does not, however, describe that its injector system is syringe based. Eberhard relates to medical fluid infusion injection systems and is therefore from an art which is the same as, or very closely analogous to, those of Applicant’s claims. Eberhard teaches that syringe pumps (10) can be used instead of peristaltic pumps (such as Bakken ’s) to deliver fluids to a patient with “ a high delivery accuracy even with large delivery volumes ” ([0007]). It 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, to make Bakken ’s injector system syringe based, because Eberhard teaches doing so in a closely related medical fluid infusion system, to deliver fluids to a patient with a high delivery accuracy even with large delivery volumes . Claim s 11 , 12, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bakken in view of U.S. Patent App. Pub. No . 2015 / 0231363 , by Uber et al . (“Uber ‘363 ”) . Bakken describes a device substantially as claimed by Applicant , as follows . Claim 11 : A method for pre-stressing a patient line, the method comprising: performing in an injection system prior to injecting fluid in a patient: applying fluid under pressure (502, injection of fluid during lower diastolic phase) ; increasing pressure in a patient line to expand an inner diameter of the patient line (5 12 , injection of fluid during higher systolic phase) ; and after the inner diameter of the patient line has been expanded, injecting fluid through the patient line and into the patient (Fig. 5, looping back to step 504, and another infusion step 512) . Bakken does not, however, describe that its injector system appl ies fluid under pressure to purge air from a patient line. Uber ‘363 relates to medical fluid infusion injection systems and is therefore from an art which is the same as, or very closely analogous to, those of Applicant’s claims. Uber ‘363 teaches that , before using an injector system (Fig. 2; a system for delivering fluid to a patient, Abstract), it is necessary to prime or purge the fluid lines, that is, to push fluid through the lines to remove air (para [0089]) , in order to remove the air from the line so that it is not infused into the patient ’s vasculature , which could form air emboli with catastrophic effects on the patient. It 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, to make Bakken ’s injector system so that it appl ies fluid under pressure to purge air from a patient line, because Uber ‘363 teaches doing so in a closely related medical fluid infusion system, to avoid infusing air into the patient vasculature. Claim 12 : (The method of Claim 11, ) further comprising: restricting flow out of a distal end of the patient line to increase the pressure in the patient line (restricting at valve 124; the valve restricts flow through the entire line, and thus out of its distal end, and also thus increases pressure in the line upstream of the valve) . Claim 1 6 : (The method of Claim 12,) wherein a cap on the distal end of the patient line restricts flow out of the distal end of the patient line (valve 124, when closed, constitutes a cap) . Claim s 17 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bakken in view of U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2020 / 0121860 , by Uber et al . (“Uber ‘860”) . Bakken describes a device substantially as claimed by Applicant ; see above . It does not, however, disclose the pressures to which it raises the fluid in any part of its patient line , and thus does not disclose that those pressures are 300 psi or 400 psi. Uber ‘860 relates to medical fluid infusion injection systems and is therefore from an art which is the same as, or very closely analogous to, those of Applicant’s claims. Uber ‘ 860 teaches that contrast agent injections pressures can be 1200 psi ([0112]), and thus on the way from zero to 1200 psi, pass through 300 psi and 400 psi, in the ordinary course of making a contrast agent injection. It 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, to perform Bakken ’s injection method so that the pressure in the patient line is at least 300 psi, or at least 400 psi, because Uber ‘ 860 teaches that contrast agent injections are performed at 1200 psi. Conclusion The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2004 / 0093008 describes prestretching a portion of catheter prior to use. The balance of the documents cited with this Office Action relate generally to infusion control systems and recognition in the prior art of the problem of infusion tubing expansion under pressure . Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to Adam J. Cermak whose telephone number is 571.272.0135. The Examiner can normally be reached FILLIN "Work Schedule?" \* MERGEFORMAT M-F 7:30-4:00 Eastern Time . 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, Bhisma Mehta , can be reached on 571.272.3383. 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. /ADAM J. CERMAK/ Assistant Patent Examiner Art Unit 3783 /BHISMA MEHTA/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3783