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 .
Application Status
This office action is responsive to the amendments filed on 02/02/2026.
Claims 1-11, 22 and 23 are pending and presented for examination.
Claims 12-21 are cancelled.
This action has been made NON-FINAL.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 02/02/2026 is being considered by the examiner. A signed IDS is hereby attached.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 02/02/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The Applicant alleged the following: “In contrast, claim 1 recites selecting illustrations representative of anatomical features ("various human anatomy that are not patient specific"). These illustrations are selected based on natural language understanding of a textual description provided by a viewer of a medical images of a particular patient. Thus, the selected illustrations are different than the actual medical images of the particular patient, and are used to generate a composite image by combining and overlaying the selected illustrations. Thus, the composite image is based on multiple non-patient specific illustrations and do not include medical images of the particular patient. The cited art, alone and in any combination, fails to teach or suggest these features.” The examiner is not persuaded. Because "applicants may amend claims to narrow their scope, a broad construction during prosecution creates no unfairness to the applicant or patentee." In re ICON Health and Fitness, Inc., 496 F.3d 1374, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004)). The examiner asserts the combination of RUPPERTSHOFEN, Mejia and Boddington discloses the claim limitations. More specifically, RUPPERTSHOFEN’s teachings in Figure 1, Figures 2 and 7, Item 118; Column 2, Lines 50-60 and Column 4, Lines 15-23 discloses the Applicant’s claim limitations. Please note: The amended claim limitation of “not patient specific” is absent from the specification. See 35 USC 112 rejection provided below. RUPPERTSHOFEN goes on to disclose in Column 4, Lines 1-15 “When the image is annotated with a finding description (e.g., “pancreatic mass”), this information is used as the description associated with the key image”, in which is the same as the Applicant’s claim language. RUPPERTSHOFEN goes on to disclose “the anatomy from textual, numerical, graphical, etc. image overlay” in Column 4, Lines 30-45. MPEP § 2106 states Office personnel are to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the supporting disclosure. In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054-55, 44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027-28 (Fed Cir. 1997). Accordingly, the examiner maintains the rejection.
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.
Claims 1-11, 22 and 23 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.
Claims 1 and 22 recites “human anatomy that are not patient specific.” There is absolutely no support for the Applicant’s newly amended claim language of “human anatomy that are not patient specific.” In fact, the Applicant’s specification teaches the opposite of the Applicant’s newly amended claim limitation of “human anatomy that are not patient specific.” Paragraph 0005 of the Applicant specification states “a composite image that illustrates the specific patient anatomy. SEE BELOW ILLUSTRATION.
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There is absolutely no mention of “human anatomy that are not patient specific” in the Applicant’s specification. Accordingly, this claim limitation is rendered as NEW MATTER.
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) 1-11, 22 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over RUPPERTSHOFEN, US Patent No.:10,210,310 in view of Mejia, US 20080146923 and in further view of Boddington, US 20220265233.
Claim 1:
RUPPERTSHOFEN a computing system (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Abstract). RUPPERTSHOFEN failed to disclose “a composite image”. However, Mejia discloses this feature in Figure 4; Paragraph 0042; 0048; 0056. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have further modified RUPPERTSHOFEN by the teachings of Mejia to enable the incorporation of a composite 3D image of anatomy more effectively (See Mejia Abstract and BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION). In addition, both of the references teach features that are directed to analogous art and they are directed to the same field of endeavor such as managing medical (i.e. anatomy) images. This close relation between both of the references highly suggests an expectation of success.
Moreover, RUPPERTSHOFEN discloses “image updater” in Column 6, Lines 45-55 and Mejia discloses “composite image” in Paragraphs 0017-0018; 0048. However, both RUPPERTSHOFEN and Mejia failed to teach “and update the composite image based on the one or more of age, gender, or anatomical measurement derived from the one or more medical images”. However, Boddington explicitly discloses “and update the composite image based on the one or more of age, gender, or anatomical measurement derived from the one or more medical images” in paragraph 0155. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have further modified RUPPERTSHOFEN and Mejia by the teachings of Boddington to enable the updating of composite images by providing intraoperative automated intelligence guided surgical and medical situational awareness support and guidance, more effectively (See Boddington BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION). In addition, both of the references teach features that are directed to analogous art and they are directed to the same field of endeavor such as managing medical (i.e. anatomy) images. This close relation between both of the references highly suggests an expectation of success.
As modified:
The combination of RUPPERTSHOFEN, Mejia and Boddington discloses the following:
a hardware computer processor (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Figure 1, Item 104; Column 2, Lines 35-50);
a non-transitory computer readable medium having software instructions stored thereon, the software instructions executable by the hardware computer processor to cause the computing system to perform operations (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Figure 1, Item 108; Column 2, Lines 35-50) comprising:
access a stored library of illustrations (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Figure 1, Figures 2 and 7, Item 118; Column 2, Lines 50-601) of various human anatomy that are not patient specific (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 4, Lines 15-23 NOTE: The amended claim limitation of “not patient specific” is absent from the specification), each illustration indexed by anatomical feature and associated state (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 4, Lines 15-232);
display one or more medical images of a particular patient (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Figures 3-5; Figure 6, Item 604; Column 4, Lines 58-67);
receive, from a viewer of the one or more medical images, a description (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 3, Lines 53-67; Column 4, Lines 1-153) of the one or more medical images (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 1, Lines 15-20; Column 2, Lines 35-62; Column 4, Lines 50-67);
apply natural language understanding (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 3, Limes 10-67) to the description (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 3, Lines 15-30) to extract anatomical features and associated states of the particular patient (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Figure 2, Item 204; 206; Figure 7, Item 702; Column 3, Limes 10-674);
select (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 7, Lines 28-60), based on the extract anatomical features and associated states (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Figure 2, Item 204; 206; Figure 7, Item 702; Column 3, Limes 10-675), one or more illustrations from the stored library (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Figure 1, Figures 2 and 7, Item 118; Column 2, Lines 50-60; Column 7, Lines 28-60);
generate a composite image (See Mejia Figure 4; Paragraph 0042; 0048; 0056) by combining and overlaying the selected illustrations (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 3, Lines 53-67; Column 4, Lines 1-156)
and update the composite image based on the one or more of age, gender, or anatomical measurement derived from the one or more medical images (See Boddington Paragraph 0155).
Claim 2:
The combination of RUPPERTSHOFEN, Mejia and Boddington discloses wherein the description of the one or more medical images is in a medical imaging report (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 1, Lines 15-20; Column 2, Lines 35-62; Column 4, Lines 50-67).
Claim 3:
The combination of RUPPERTSHOFEN, Mejia and Boddington discloses wherein the description of the one or more medical images (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 1, Lines 15-20; Column 2, Lines 35-62; Column 4, Lines 50-67) is received via input from the user of the computing system (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Figure 1, Item 100; Column 2, Lines 35-50).
Claim 4:
The combination of RUPPERTSHOFEN, Mejia and Boddington discloses wherein the illustrations are indexed based on one or more of an imaging exam type or a report template (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 4, Lines 50-67).
Claim 5:
The combination of RUPPERTSHOFEN, Mejia and Boddington discloses wherein the operations further comprise: creating a matching DICOM frame of reference (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 15-40) between the one or more medical images and the generated composite image (“The link generator 710, in response to matching a finding in the report and an annotation in the image, creates a link such as a hyperlink for both the report and the image” See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 4, Lines 50-67; Column 6, Lines 18-45).
Claim 6:
The combination of RUPPERTSHOFEN, Mejia and Boddington discloses wherein the composite image is a volumetric composite image (See Mejia Paragraphs 0017-0018; 0048).
Claim 7:
The combination of RUPPERTSHOFEN, Mejia and Boddington discloses wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving user input requesting reformatting of the volumetric composite image into a three-dimensional or multiplanar images (See Mejia Paragraphs 0017-0018; 0048);
and performing the requested reformatting (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 6, Lines 45-55).
Claim 8:
The combination of RUPPERTSHOFEN, Mejia and Boddington discloses wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving user input selecting a first of the illustrations in the composite image (See Mejia Figure 4; Paragraphs 0042; 0048; 0056);
and regenerating the composite image without the first of the illustrations (See Mejia Figure 4; Paragraphs 0042; 0048; 0056), wherein positions of one or more other illustrations become visible in the regenerated composite image (See Mejia Figure 4; Paragraphs 0042; 0048; 0056).
Claim 9:
The combination of RUPPERTSHOFEN, Mejia and Boddington discloses wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving user input selecting an anatomical feature (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 4, Lines 15-23);
determining one or more portions of the composite image (See Mejia Figure 4; Paragraph 0042; 0048; 0056) overlapping or obscuring view (See Mejia Figure 4; Paragraphs 0048; 0053; 0058-0059) of the anatomical feature in the composite image (See Mejia Figure 4; Paragraphs 0042; 0048; 0056);
and regenerating the composite image (See Mejia Figure 4; Paragraphs 0042; 0048; 0056) to at least partially remove the one or more portions of the composite image overlapping or obscuring view (See Mejia Figure 4; Paragraphs 0048; 0053; 0058-0059) of the anatomical feature (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 4, Lines 15-23).
Claim 10:
The combination of RUPPERTSHOFEN, Mejia and Boddington discloses wherein the user input is received by user selection of text in a medical imaging report (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 4, Lines 50-67).
Claim 11:
The combination of RUPPERTSHOFEN, Mejia and Boddington discloses determining a report description associated with the one or more selected illustrations (“The link generator 710, in response to matching a finding in the report and an annotation in the image, creates a link such as a hyperlink for both the report and the image” See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 4, Lines 50-67; Column 6, Lines 18-45); and generating at least portions of a report based on the determined report descriptions (See RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 4, Lines 50-67; Column 6, Lines 18-45).
Claim 22:
Claim 22 is rejected on the same basis as claim 1.
Claim 23:
The combination of RUPPERTSHOFEN, Mejia and Boddington discloses wherein said combining and overlaying the selected illustrations is performed using generated artificial intelligence (See Boddington Paragraphs 0073-0079).
Pertinent Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US Patent No.: US 11664114 -- FIG. 8A presents an embodiment of the medical scan assisted review system 102. The medical scan assisted review system 102 can be used to aid medical professionals or other users in diagnosing, triaging, classifying, ranking, and/or otherwise reviewing medical scans by presenting a medical scan for review by a user by transmitting medical scan data of a selected medical scan and/or interface feature data of selected interface features of to a client device 120 corresponding to a user of the medical scan assisted review system for display via a display device of the client device. The medical scan assisted review system 102 can generate scan review data 810 for a medical scan based on user input to the interactive interface 275 displayed by the display device in response to prompts to provide the scan review data 810, for example, where the prompts correspond to one or more interface features.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHEREE N BROWN whose telephone number is (571)272-4229. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 5:30-2:00 PM EST.
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, SAID BROOME can be reached at (571) 272-2931. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SHEREE N BROWN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2612 March 13, 2026
1 Column 2, Lines 50-60 of RUPPERTSHOFEN discloses “an image repository(s) 118 that stores electronically formatted images” in which is the same as the Applicant’s teachings of “a stored library of illustrations”.
2 Column 4, Lines 15-23 recites The report/image linking module 122 further includes an anatomy identifier 208. The anatomy identifier 208 identifies anatomy in images of studies where a measurement is made. In one instance, this information is identified from the DICOM “Study Description Field,” the “Protocol Name Field,” the “Series Description Field” and/or other field that contain anatomy related information. For instance, where one of these fields includes “pancreatic mass,” the anatomy identifier 208 identifies the “pancreas.” The examiner interprets the Applicant’s “indexed” as being the sane as “anatomy identifier”.
3 Column 4, Lines 1-15 of RUPPERTSHOFEN discloses “When the image is annotated with a finding description (e.g., “pancreatic mass”), this information is used as the description associated with the key image”, in which is the same as the Applicant’s claim language.
4 RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 3, Limes 10-67 recites “With one report, this may include extracting: “series 11” and “image number 79” from a sentence “The left hepatic reference lesion (series number 11, image number 79) measures approximately 6.4×5.4 cm.”
5 RUPPERTSHOFEN Column 3, Limes 10-67 recites “With one report, this may include extracting: “series 11” and “image number 79” from a sentence “The left hepatic reference lesion (series number 11, image number 79) measures approximately 6.4×5.4 cm.”
6 Column 4, Lines 1-15 of RUPPERTSHOFEN discloses “When the image is annotated with a finding description (e.g., “pancreatic mass”), this information is used as the description associated with the key image”, in which is the same as the Applicant’s claim language.