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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of Invention Ia in the reply filed on December 17, 2025 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that combining Invention Ia (claims 14 and 28) with Invention If would only require examining two more claims. This is not found persuasive because this does not show that the restriction was in error. Upon further consideration, current claims 14 and 28 are examined in this Office action because Guysatin appears to teach the limitations of claims 14 and 28 and the claims do not require a separate/further search. However, the claims are still considered withdrawn.
Please note that pursuant to the procedures set forth in MPEP § 821.04(a), the restriction requirement will be withdrawn upon the allowability of claim 1, and its dependent claims will be rejoined and fully examined for patentability under 37 CFR 1.104. 121.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
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) 1-8, 15-21, 28, and 29 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Gusyatin (US 2022/0066390, cited in IDS of 01/10/2024).
Gusytin shows a lens-free holographic optical system:
A sample analysis system, comprising:
a holographic imager (Fig. 6, 6) configured to generate a holograph of a sample volume;
one or more processors (processor 638) operatively coupled to the holographic imager; and
a memory (memory 636) operatively coupled to the one or more processors and storing program code (Figs. 8-12; Para. [0014]: "one or more computer-readable storage media including stored instructions") that, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the system to:
generate a first holograph of the sample volume at a first time (step 804; Figs. 8-12), the first holograph including a first plurality of pixels each having an intensity;
determine a first dispersion factor of the intensity of at least a first portion of the first plurality of pixels (para. [0123]: "The hologram variation can be derived…by using pixel intensity to calculate a statistical variability metric including, but not limited to standard deviation, range, interquartile range and coefficient of variation."); and
determine a property of the sample volume based on a value of the first dispersion factor (para. [0123]: "populations of objects in at least the growth control cell is classified based on the detected hologram variation.").
2. The sample analysis system of claim 1, wherein the program code causes the system to determine the property of the sample volume based on the value of the first dispersion factor by comparing the value of the first dispersion factor to a predetermined threshold value (para. [0015]: "cause the system to compare a first in-line hologram of a sample volume at a first time and a second in-line hologram of the sample volume at a second time").
3. The sample analysis system of claim 1, wherein the program code further causes the system to:
generate a second holograph of the sample volume at a second time, the second holograph including a second plurality of pixels each having an intensity (para. [0014]: "the methods include detecting an in-line hologram of a biological sample at a first time and a second time"). ;
determine a second dispersion factor of the intensity of at least a second portion of the second plurality of pixels(para. [0123]: "The hologram variation can be derived…by using pixel intensity to calculate a statistical variability metric including, but not limited to standard deviation, range, interquartile range and coefficient of variation."). ; and
determine the property of the sample volume based on the value of the first dispersion factor by comparing the value of the first dispersion factor to the value of the second dispersion factor (para. [0015]: "cause the system to compare a first in-line hologram of a sample volume at a first time and a second in-line hologram of the sample volume at a second time").
4. The system of claim 1, wherein the first portion of the first plurality of pixels is one of a plurality of portions of the first plurality of pixels (para. [0106]: "the first in-line hologram" or one of the "one or more of the objects"), and the program code further causes the system to:
determine a second dispersion factor of the intensity of a second portion of the first plurality of pixels (para. [0106]: "the first in-line hologram and the second in-line hologram, are compared so as to identify holographic and/or reconstructed spatial differences, so that the variations over time can be determined at 818."), and
determine the property of the sample volume based on the value of the first dispersion factor by comparing the first dispersion factor to the second dispersion factor (para. [0106]: "Additionally, intensity variation of the holograms over time (e.g., spatiapara. [0105]: "Reconstructions can be performed according to various methods, such as with various diffraction propagation approximations (e.g., Fresnel approximation) and iterative phase retrieval approaches, such as Gerchberg-Saxton algorithms.") in the portion of interest; and
analyze the object.
6. The system of claim 5, wherein the program code causes the system to analyze the object by reconstructing a photograph from the first holograph at the z-height (Figs. 1, 3-4).
7. The system of claim 5, wherein the program code causes the system to identify the portion of interest by:
determining a dispersion factor of the intensity of each portion of the first plurality of pixels to generate a plurality of dispersion factors;
comparing the value of each dispersion factor of the plurality of dispersion factors to one or more values of other dispersion factors of the plurality of dispersion factors; and
identifying the dispersion factor of the portion of interest as an outlier from the plurality of dispersion factors (see citations given for claims 1 and 2 above).
8. (Withdrawn) The system of claim 4, wherein each portion of the plurality of portions of the first plurality of pixels comprises a tile of a plurality of tiles of the first holograph (para. [0123]: "The hologram variation can be derived…by using pixel intensity to calculate a statistical variability metric including, but not limited to standard deviation, range, interquartile range and coefficient of variation.").
15. A method of analyzing a sample volume, comprising:
generating a first holograph of the sample volume at a first time, the first holograph including a first plurality of pixels each having an intensity;
determining a first dispersion factor of the intensity of at least a first portion of the first plurality of pixels; and
determining a property of the sample volume based on a value of the first dispersion factor (see citations given for claim 1 above).
16. The method of claim 15, wherein determining the property of the sample volume based on the value of the first dispersion factor includes comparing the value of the first dispersion factor to a predetermined threshold value (see citations given for claim 2 above).
17. The method of claim 15, further comprising:
generating a second holograph of the sample volume at a second time, the second holograph including a second plurality of pixels each having an intensity;
determining a second dispersion factor of the intensity of at least a second portion of the second plurality of pixels; and
determining the property of the sample volume based on the value of the first dispersion factor by comparing the value of the first dispersion factor to the value of the second dispersion factor (see citations given for claim 3 above).
18. The method of claim 15, wherein the first portion of the first plurality of pixels is one of a plurality of portions of the first plurality of pixels, and further comprising:
determining a second dispersion factor of the intensity of a second portion of the first plurality of pixels; and
determining the property of the sample volume based on the value of the first dispersion factor by comparing the first dispersion factor to the second dispersion factor (see citations given for claim 4 above).
19. The method of claim 18, further comprising
identifying a portion of interest in the first plurality of portions;
determining a z-height of an object generating a diffraction pattern in the portion of interest; and
analyzing the object (see citations given for claim 5 above).
20. The method of claim 19, wherein analyzing the object includes reconstructing a photograph from the first holograph at the z-height (see citations given for claim 5 above).
21. The method of claim 19, wherein identifying the portion of interest includes:
determining a dispersion factor of the intensity of each portion of the first plurality of pixels to generate a plurality of dispersion factors;
comparing the value of each dispersion factor of the plurality of dispersion factors to one or more values of other dispersion factors of the plurality of dispersion factors and identifying the dispersion factor of the portion of interest as an outlier from the plurality of dispersion factors (see citations given for claim 1 above).
28. (Withdrawn) The system of claim 15, wherein each portion of the plurality of portions of the first plurality of pixels comprises a tile of a plurality of tiles of the first holograph (para. [0123]: "The hologram variation can be derived…by using pixel intensity to calculate a statistical variability metric including, but not limited to standard deviation, range, interquartile range and coefficient of variation.").
29. A computer program product comprising:
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium; and
program code stored on the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to:
cause a holographic imager to generate a first holograph of a sample volume at a first time, the first holograph including a first plurality of pixels each having an intensity;
determine a first dispersion factor of the intensity of at least a first portion of the first plurality of pixels; and
determine a property of the sample volume based on a value of the first dispersion factor (see citations given for claim 1 above).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. U.S. 2017/0220000 to Ozcan et al shows a device for iterative phase recovery on pixel super-resolved on-chip holography:
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/Hwa Andrew Lee/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2877