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 § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e. an abstract idea) without significantly more.
In regarding claims 1, 10 and 17:
Step 1:
Claims 1, 10 and 17 are directed towards a process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter which is/are statutory subject matter.
Step 2A:
Prong 1:
Claims 1, 10 and 17 are directed an idea for determining mid-sagittal plane coordinates in the scan coordinate space by computing a midpoint of a parametric line connecting the pair of vertices, which is an abstract idea.
Consideration of the claimed elements:
Regarding claims 1, 10 and 17:
A method comprising:
adapting a shape-constrained deformable brain model to a scan of a patient's brain to generate a dense deformation field and a patient-specific 3D brain representation;
determining anterior commissure (AC) coordinates and posterior commissure (PC) coordinates in a coordinate space of the scan by using the dense deformation field to transform known AC and PC coordinates in a coordinate space of the shape-constrained deformable model to the scan coordinate space;
determining a pair of vertices of the patient-specific 3D brain representation that are symmetric with respect to each other about a mid-sagittal plane of the patient-specific 3D brain representation; and
determining mid-sagittal plane coordinates in the scan coordinate space by computing a midpoint of a parametric line connecting the pair of vertices.
For the limitation of “adapting a shape-constrained deformable brain model to a scan of a patient's brain to generate a dense deformation field and a patient-specific 3D brain representation”, it can be interpreted as taking an image (a patient's brain scan), applying a shape-constrained deformable model, and using algorithms to calculate a dense deformation field. The claimed limitation can be broadly read as mathematical concepts.
For the limitation of “determining anterior commissure (AC) coordinates and posterior commissure (PC) coordinates in a coordinate space of the scan by using the dense deformation field to transform known AC and PC coordinates in a coordinate space of the shape-constrained deformable model to the scan coordinate space”, it can be interpreted as the person can, by using a pen and paper, map anterior commissure (AC) coordinates and posterior commissure (PC) coordinates in a coordinate space of the scan from the model, or using mathematical algorithm to transform known AC and PC coordinates from the model to coordinate space of the scan. The claimed limitation can be broadly read as mental processes, or mathematical concepts.
For the limitation of “determining a pair of vertices of the patient-specific 3D brain representation that are symmetric with respect to each other about a mid-sagittal plane of the patient-specific 3D brain representation”, it can be interpreted as the person can, by using a pen and paper, determine a pair of vertices of the patient-specific 3D brain representation that are symmetric with respect to each other about a mid-sagittal plane of the patient-specific 3D brain representation, or using mathematical algorithm to determine a pair of vertices of the patient-specific 3D brain representation that are symmetric with respect to each other about a mid-sagittal plane of the patient-specific 3D brain representation. The claimed limitation can be broadly read as mental processes, or mathematical concepts.
For the limitation of “determining mid-sagittal plane coordinates in the scan coordinate space by computing a midpoint of a parametric line connecting the pair of vertices”, it can be interpreted as, using mathematical algorithm, to determine mid-sagittal plane coordinates in the scan coordinate space by computing a midpoint of a parametric line connecting the pair of vertices. The claimed limitation can be broadly read as mathematical concepts.
Prong 2:
The claims include additional elements of
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium;
one or more processing resources.
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, and one or more processing resources are general computer elements.
Moreover, the claim limitations that are not indicative of integration into a practical application.
Thus, the above recited additional elements perform no more than their basic computer function. Generic computer-implementation of a method is not a meaningful limitation that alone can amount to significantly more than an abstract idea. Moreover, when viewed as a whole with such additional element considered as an ordered combination, claims modified by adding a generic memory and processor are nothing more than a purely conventional computerized implementation of an idea in the general field of computer processing and do not provide significantly more than an abstract idea.
Accordingly, the claims are directed to an idea of itself, and therefore not patent eligible.
Step 2B:
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception such as improvements to another technology or technical field, or other meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment.
Moreover, the claim language that may be separate from the abstract idea (i.e., additional elements) include general computer elements and data gathering. The additional elements (e.g., general computer elements) simply appending well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception (WURC) - see MPEP 2106.05(d) and 2106.07(a)III.
Thus, the recited generic additional element (e.g., general computer elements) perform no more than their basic computer function. Generic computer-implementation of a method is not a meaningful limitation that alone can amount to significantly more than an abstract idea. Moreover, when viewed as a whole with such additional element considered as an ordered combination, claims modified by adding a generic memory are nothing more than a purely conventional computerized implementation of an idea in the general field of computer processing and do not provide significantly more than an abstract idea.
Consequently, the identified additional elements taken into consideration individually or in combination fails to amount of significantly more than the abstract idea above.
Regarding claims 2 – 9, 11 – 16 and 18 – 20, the rejection is based on the same rationale described for claims 1, 10 and 17, because the claims include/inherit the same/similar type of problematic limitation(s) as claims 1, 10 and 17, wherein limitations regarding “is …”, “comprise …”, “providing …”, “transforming …”, and/or “determining …”, is/are of sufficient breadth that it would be substantially directed to or reasonably interpreted as a part of the “mental processes” as the abstract idea (similar to claims 1, 10 and 17 as stated above). It is noted that further additional limitation is merely generic/conventional computer component/steps to implement the abstract idea, which is, individually or in combination, not sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Therefore, the claimed invention as a whole is directed to an ineligible subject matter.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102/103
No reference is found for § 102/103 rejections.
The current invention is directed to a system/method comprising: adapting a shape-constrained deformable brain model to a scan of a patient's brain to generate a dense deformation field and a patient-specific 3D brain representation; determining anterior commissure (AC) coordinates and posterior commissure (PC) coordinates in a coordinate space of the scan by using the dense deformation field to transform known AC and PC coordinates in a coordinate space of the shape-constrained deformable model to the scan coordinate space; determining a pair of vertices of the patient-specific 3D brain representation that are symmetric with respect to each other about a mid-sagittal plane of the patient-specific 3D brain representation; and determining mid-sagittal plane coordinates in the scan coordinate space by computing a midpoint of a parametric line connecting the pair of vertices.
The closest reference Sullivan et al. (US 2021/0158515) discloses a system/ method for volumetrically determining a mid-sagittal plane (MSP) from a plurality of magnetic resonance (MR) images of a brain is disclosed. The method received plurality of MR images and converted into a 3D volume image defined in a 3D coordinate space. Semantic segmentation of an anterior commissure (AC) region, posterior commissure (PC) region, and a third ventricle region in the 3D volume image is performed based on a pre-trained segmentation model to generate a 3D mask image labeled with the AC region, the PC region, and the third ventricle region. Based on the labeled 3D mask image, a 3D volumetric image of the segmented third ventricle region is constructed. The MSP is determined based on the 3D volumetric image of the third ventricle region (abstract).
Liu et al. (“Automatic Localization of the Anterior Commissure, Posterior Commissure, and Midsagittal Plane in MRI Scans using Regression Forests”) discloses a learning-based method for automatic and efficient localization of AC/PC, MSP and the plane using regression forests. Given a point in an image, it first extract a set of multiscale long-range contextual features. It then build random forests models to learn a nonlinear relationship between these features and the probability of the point being a landmark or in the plane. Three-stage coarse-to-fine models are trained for the AC, PC, and MSP separately using downsampled by 4, downsampled by 2, and the original images. Localization is performed hierarchically, starting with a rough estimation that is progressively refined (abstract).
However, neither Sullivan nor Liu, alone or in combination, teach all the limitations recited in the independent claims of the instant application.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to QIAN YANG whose telephone number is (571)270-7239. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday 8am-6pm.
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/QIAN YANG/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2677
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