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 Objections
The claims filed on 14 September 2023 are objected to because of the following informalities: There is extraneous text between claims 8 and 9. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim(s) 1-4, 6-12, and 14-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Bangert et al. (“Comparison of beam angle selection strategies for intracranial IMRT”, cited by Applicant).
With respect to claims 1, 2, 9, and 10, Bangert discloses: a method and associated system to facilitate optimizing a radiation treatment plan for a particular patient, the method comprising: by a control circuit and during a radiation treatment plan optimization loop (Section III.A Hardware and software implementation): conducting a dosimetric optimization iteration to yield a dosimetric-based plan result (first class incorporating fluence optimization (FO), Section I. Introduction); conducting a non-dosimetric optimization iteration to yield a non-dosimetric-based plan result (beam angle selection (BAS), Section I. Introduction); assessing the dosimetric-based plan result and the non-dosimetric-based plan result to yield a convergence assessment result (CO module requests minimized objection function value for a certain beam combination from the FO module and based on the result the combinatorial process is constantly refined); determining whether to conclude continued radiation treatment plan optimization loops as a function, at least in part, of the convergence assessment result (stopping conditions are disclosed, such as completion of investigation of different beam ensembles, section II.C Treatment planning study).
With respect to claims 3 and 11, Bangert discloses and iterative operation to explore at least one control point setting (beam angle selections (BAS), sections II.A and II.B).
With respect to claims 7, 8, 15, and 16, Bangert discloses outputting treatment plans after a stopping condition is met (see for example, Table II). Bangert also implicitly discloses application of these treatment plans to a patient (discussion of reducing dose and tissue damage during application of the treatment plans, section IV. Discussion).
With respect to claims 4, 6, 12, and 14, Bangert discloses conducting dosimetric optimization iteration to yield a dosimetric-based plan result (FO) while not conducting subsequent non-dosimetric optimization iterations (processing a large number of FOs for individual BAS values, section II.B.1).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5 and 13 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
With respect to claims 5 and 13, the cited prior art does not appear to disclose or reasonably suggest applying an optimization penalty as a function of convergence assessment results that represent deviation between the dosimetric-based plan result and the non-dosimetric-based plan result.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARK R GAWORECKI whose telephone number is (571)272-8540. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8 AM-6 PM.
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, DAVID MAKIYA can be reached at 571-272-2273. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/MARK R GAWORECKI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2884 28 January 2026