DETAILED ACTION
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 6, 7, 11, 13, 16 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Cao, et al (“Predicting retention time in hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography mass spectrometry and its use for peak annotation in metabolomics” Metabolomics (2015) 11:696-706; cited in IDS, copy in IFW).
Regarding claim 1, Cao discloses a system for identifying a chromatographic peak of a compound of interest using the chemical structure of the compound of interest provided in notation form, comprising:
A separation device or a sample introduction device that separates or introduces a compound of interest from a sample containing unknown components at a plurality of different times (HILIC, page 698, left column, first paragraph);
An ion source device that ionizes the compound d, producing an ion beam (ESI, page 698, left column, first paragraph);
A mass spectrometer that selects and mass analyzes the compound from the ion beam at the plurality of different times, producing a plurality of mass spectra for the compound (MS, page 698, left column, first paragraph); and
A processor that:
Determines an extracted ion chromatogram (XIC) for the compound using the plurality of mass spectra received from the mass spectrometer (page 698, right column, third paragraph);
Converts a chemical structure of the compound received in notation form (SMILES, p. 698, left column, first paragraph and page 699, left column, first paragraph) to a numerical vector using a processing algorithm operable to convert the notation form to the numerical vector (page 699, left column, lines 10-13 and 34-36; page 700, right column, first paragraph);
Calculates a plurality of peak shape parameters (MDs, p. 697, right column) for the compound using the numerical vector and a machine trained model (p. 698, left column, first paragraph); and
Identifies a peak of the XIC as a peak of the compound using the plurality of peak shape parameters (p. 702, right column, first paragraph).
Regarding claim 3, Cao discloses wherein the notation form comprises SMILES notation (p. 698, left column, first paragraph and page 699, left column, first paragraph).
Regarding claim 6, Cao discloses wherein the machine trained model comprises a previously generated model developed from machine learning trained on a plurality of examples of peak shape parameters to numerical vector data (p. 699, right column, first paragraph).
Regarding claim 7, Cao discloses wherein the previously generated model utilized a lookup table, a neural network, a support vector machine model, or a decision tree model (p. 698 and 699, right column, first paragraph).
Regarding claim 11, Cao discloses wherein the processor further calculates the plurality of peak shape parameters for the compound using one or more configuration parameters of the separation device or the sample introduction device, the numerical vector, and the machine trained model (p. 698, right column, first paragraph).
Regarding claim 13, Cao discloses wherein the processor further calculates the plurality of peak shape parameters for the compound using an expected retention time received for the compound, the numerical vector, and the machine trained model (p. 698, right column, first paragraph).
Claim 16 is drawn to the method of using the system of claim 1, and the same rejection applies mutatis mutandis.
Claim 18 is drawn to a computer program product on a non-transitory storage medium for using the system of claim 1, and the same rejection applies mutatis mutandis.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 4, 5, 8-10, 12, 14, 15, 17 and 19 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: Regarding claims 2, 17 and 19, the prior art fails to teach identifying a peak of the XIC as a peak of the compound using a peak integration algorithm. Regarding claims 4 and 5, the prior art fails to teach wherein the processing algorithm operable to convert the notation form to the numerical vector comprises a natural language to numerical vector processing algorithm. Regarding claims 8-10, the prior art fails to teach wherein the plurality of peak shape parameters comprises peak shape parameters for a mathematical peak model used by the peak integration algorithm. Regarding claim 12, the prior art fails to teach wherein the one or more configuration parameters comprise one or more numerical values that represent one or more of a separation device or a sample introduction device type, an ion pairing agent type, or a solvent type. Regarding claims 14 and 15, the prior art fails to teach wherein the machine trained model is trained using a plurality of different known standard samples that are analyzed for a known compound of interest using one or more separation devices or sample introduction devices and one or more mass spectrometers by calculating a plurality of peak shape parameters using a peak of at least one XIC received for each known compound of the plurality of standard samples; converting a chemical structure received for each known compound of the plurality of standard samples in the notation form to a numerical vector using the processing algorithm operable to convert the notation form to the numerical vector, and creating the machine trained model by utilizing machine learning using the plurality of peak shape parameters and the numerical vector for each known compound of the plurality of standard samples.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL P MASKELL whose telephone number is (571)270-3210. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10A-6P.
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/MICHAEL MASKELL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2881 27 December 2025