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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-8, 13, 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vogtmeier (WO 2022/096386) in view of Schmitt et al. (US 2021/0110262).
Regarding to claims 1, 18, 20:
Vogtmeier discloses a method for detecting an anomaly related to a medical imaging device, the method comprising:
acquiring data from a plurality of detectors of the medical imaging device (FIG. 1, step S1 and S3 and page 10, lines 1-13: The measurement data);
applying the acquired data comprising splitting, based on a predetermined criterion, the acquired data into a first group of data and a second group of data, applying and processing the first group of data to obtain first outputs, and applying and processing the second group of data to obtain second outputs (page 13, lines 1-13 and FIG. 1: The first data set and the second data set are acquired (step S1, S3) at different operation modes, and processed to be output at step S2, S4); and
detecting the anomaly related to the medical imaging device based on a difference between the first outputs and the second outputs (page 13, lines 13-22: The data sets, after being processed, are compared and validated (steps S5-S6) whether the data sets differ from each other to generate a maintenance prediction information).
Vogtmeier however does not teach wherein processing the first data set and the second data set by a first autoencoder.
Schmitt et al. discloses a method for detecting an anomalous operating status of a technical system comprising acquiring data from the technical system and applying the data to an autoencoder for processing to determine the anomalous operating status (paragraph [0031]: Using auto-encoder neural network to obtain good performance for anomaly scores).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Vogtmeier’s method to use an auto-encoder to process the data sets to detect the anomaly as disclosed by Schmitt, because of its very high performance that exceeds the performance state of art in the anomaly detection (paragraphs [0030]-[0031]).
Schmitt also discloses the following claims:
Regarding to claim 2: wherein the first autoencoder comprises an encoder (FIG. 9, elements ENCODER) configured to generate latent vectors (FIG. 9: LATENT REPRESENTATION), and a decoder (FIG. 9, elements DECODER) configured to reconstruct data from the generated latent vectors, and the step of detecting the anomaly further comprises detecting, based on the generated latent vectors or the reconstructed data, the anomaly related to the technical device (FIG. 9 shows the anomaly scores ASa and ASb generated from the outputs of the latent vector and decoder).
Regarding to claims 3, 8, 19: further comprising: training the first autoencoder based on a training dataset generated from the data acquired from the plurality of detectors, wherein the training dataset comprises a first training dataset and a second training dataset (FIG. 1 shows the preparatory training step from the data samples characterizing anomalous operation (first dataset) and normal operation (second dataset)).
Regarding to claim 13: wherein the detecting step further comprises detecting the anomaly: by means of direct analysis of the outputs from the first autoencoder; by means of clustering of the outputs from the first autoencoder; or by means of a power spectrum analysis of the outputs from the first autoencoder (FIG. 9 shows the anomaly score Asa calculated from the output of the decoder).
Vogtmeier also discloses the following claims:
Regarding to claim 5-7: wherein the predetermined criterion is an operation condition/processing method/a time of the medical imaging device, the first and second groups of data correspond to a first operating condition/processing method/a first time and a second condition/processing method/a second time, respectively, and the first and second operating conditions/processing methods/times are different from each other (page 13, lines 1-15: The data sets are acquired at different operating modes including condition and processing and times).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claim(s) have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument. Claim 1 even though is amendment to include the original claim 4, the scope of the amended claim 1 is not identical to that of the original claim 4 previously indicated as allowable.
Conclusion
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 LAM S NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-2151.
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/LAM S NGUYEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2853