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 .
DETAILED ACTION
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 1-4 and 24 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by TSAI et al (US 2020/0234023).
Regarding claim 1, TSAI discloses system, comprising: a sheet flexible material 301 having a contact surface adapted to be placed on an outer surface of a patient’s body;
a plurality of sensing apparatuses having respective sensing surfaces distributed across the contact surface of the sheet, at least one of the sensing apparatuses comprising:
a multimodal sensing apparatus comprising:
a transducer 409 configured to at least sense acoustic energy from a transducer location of the sheet;
circuitry coupled to the transducer;
an electrophysiological sensor 303 coupled to the circuitry, the sensor configured to at least sense electrophysiological signals from a sensor location of the sheet, in which the sensor location has a known spatial position relative to the transducer location; and
a monolithic substrate carrying the transducer, the circuitry and the electrophysiological sensor, see paragraph [0031].
Regarding claim 2, TSAI discloses the monolithic substrate comprises one of a printed circuit board 101 material or a packaging material.
Regarding claim 3, TSAI discloses the transducer comprises a plurality of micromachined electromechanical systems (MEMS) transducer elements integrated on a respective integrated circuit die, the respective die including at least a portion of the circuitry carried by the substrate, see paragraph [0035].
Regarding claim 4, TSAI discloses the transducer comprises an ultrasound transducer configured receive ultrasonic vibrations and convert the received ultrasonic vibrations to electrical signals, the circuitry on the respective die configured to process the electrical signals and provide ultrasound image data based on the received ultrasonic vibrations, and the electrophysiological sensor comprises an electrode, see paragraphs [0037], [0039] and [0041].
Regarding claim 24, TSAI discloses a multimodal sensing apparatus, comprising: a solid state transducer 409 configured to at least sense acoustic energy from a transducer location;
circuitry coupled to the transducer;
an electrophysiological sensor coupled to the circuitry, the sensor 303 configured to at least sense electrophysiological force signals from a sensor location, in which the sensor location has a known spatial position relative to the transducer location; and
a monolithic substrate carrying the solid state transducer, the circuitry and the electrophysiological sensor, see paragraph [0031].
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Li et al (US 2008/0287803).
Regarding claim 18, Li discloses a system comprising:
a sensing system comprising;
an arrangement of electrophysiological sensors 132 and ultrasound transducer modules 140 on a flexible sheet 150 adapted to be placed on an outer surface of a patient’s body, the electrophysiological sensors configured to measure electrophysiological signals from the body surface, and the ultrasound transducer modules 140 configured to measure acoustic waves from the body surface and provide respective ultrasound images;
a remote system 134 coupled to the sensing system through a communication link, the remote system comprising:
one or more non-transitory machine readable media to store data and instructions, see paragraphs [0038], [0039], [0041], [0043], [0056], [0058] and [0068], the data comprising ultrasound image data representative of the respective ultrasound images provided by the ultrasound transducer modules, electrophysiological data representative of the electrophysiological signals measured from the body surface, and geometry data representing a spatial relationship between the electrophysiological sensors and patient anatomy in a three-dimensional coordinate system, the geometry data being determined based on the ultrasound image data, see paragraph [0018]; and
a processor 220 to access the media and execute the instructions to perform a method comprising:
analyzing at least one of the ultrasound image data (140 and 142) and the electrophysiological data 132; and
providing output data 240 to visualize physiological information for the patient based on the analysis.
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.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TSAI et al (US 2020/0234023).
Regarding claim 6, TSAI discloses the digital circuity can include a communication bus, see paragraph [0030]. One of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to provide the sheet comprising substrate 301 and the plurality of sensing apparatuses defining the sensing system with a communication link because the communication bus is intended to be used for providing a communication link.
The skilled artisan would have found it obvious to link the system with a remote system comprising: a communication interface configured to communicate with sensing system through the communication link; and a computing apparatus coupled to the communication interface, the computing apparatus configured to process information received from the at least
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 7-17 and 19-23 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to George Manuel whose telephone number is (571) 272-4952.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Benjamin Klein can be reached on (571) 270-5213. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/George Manuel/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit: 3792
7/30/2025
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