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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 11-22, filed on 03/20/2026, with respect to the pending 101 rejection of claims 1-18 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 101 rejection of claims 1, 7, and 13 has been withdrawn.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 7, and 13 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1
There appears to be an extra space between “small window period” and “to identify ectopic beats” on pg. 2, line 6 of the claim. Examiner suggests removing the extra spacing between the words.
Examiner suggests amending pg. 2, line 6 to recite “…to identify an ectopic beat…”.
Examiner suggests amending pg. 2, lines 8-9 to recite “over the short period[[,]] provides information extraction [[mechanism]] from the small window period with a unique combination…”.
Examiner suggests amending pg. 2, line 10 to recite “when the number of windows are high, and increases training instances”.
Examiner suggests amending pg. 3, line 14 to recite “series and is less sensitive to missing…”.
Claim 7
There appears to be an extra space between “small window period” and “to identify ectopic beats” on pg. 5, line 4 of the claim. Examiner suggests removing the extra spacing between the words.
Examiner suggests amending pg. 5, line 4 to recite “…to identify an ectopic beat…”.
Examiner suggests amending pg. 5, lines 5-7 to recite “over the short period[[,]] provides information extraction [[mechanism]] from the small window period with a unique combination…”.
Examiner suggests amending pg. 5, line 8 to recite “when the number of windows are high, and increases training instances”.
Examiner suggests amending pg. 6, line 5 to recite “…series and is less sensitive to missing…”.
Examiner suggests amending pg. 6, line 10 to recite “displaying the arrhythmia…”.
Claim 13
There appears to be an extra space between “small window period” and “to identify ectopic beats” on pg. 7, line 6 of the claim. Examiner suggests removing the extra spacing between the words.
Examiner suggests amending pg. 7, line 7 to recite “identify an ectopic beat…”.
Examiner suggests amending pg. 7, lines 8-9 to recite “over the short period[[,]] provides information extraction [[mechanism]] from the small window period with a unique combination…”.
Examiner suggests amending pg. 7, line 10 to recite “when the number of windows are high, and increases training instances”.
There appears to be an extra space between “accurate insights” and “when number of windows” on pg. 7, line 10 of the claim. Examiner suggests removing the extra spacing between the words.
Examiner suggests amending pg. 8, line 23 to recite “…series and is less sensitive to missing…”.
Appropriate correction is respectfully requested.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 3-7, 9-13, and 15-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The term “manner in which the physician understand” in claims 1, 7, and 13 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “manner in which the physician understand” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. Specifically, the claims provide no limitations on what the physician can or cannot understand so it is unclear as to how the arrhythmia report is being displayed. Dependent claims inherit the same deficiencies.
Allowable Subject Matter
While claims 1, 3-7, 9-13, and 15-19 are rejected under 35 USC 112, Examiner has not found any prior art that teaches or suggests in combination the limitations recited in claims 1, 7, and 13. Specifically, Examiner has not found any references that teach deriving each of the claimed plurality of features from at least one of the RAW data and the TSA data.
Houben (US 2006/0167364) discloses a processor implemented method for determining cardiac abnormalities, the method comprising:
segmenting (Fig. 5: R wave detection 32) via one or more hardware processors ([0007] processor), time series data associated with multi-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) signals captured for each of a plurality of subjects (Fig. 5: ECG 30), into a plurality of overlapping windows [0036];
decomposing (Fig. 5: beat extraction 34) via the one or more hardware processors, the time series data associated with each of the plurality of overlapping windows to generate raw (RAW) data comprising windowed decomposed time series [0036]; and
applying via the one or more hardware processors, de-trending and de-seasonalizing (Fig. 5: time alignment and detrending 36) on the windowed decomposed time series data to generate Trend and Seasonally Adjusted (TSA) data [0036];
deriving via the one or more hardware processors, a plurality of features from at least one of the RAW data and the TSA data or both of the RAW data and the TSA data [0036], wherein the plurality of features comprises:
a chaos feature (Fig. 5: signal averaging 38) for the RAW data providing a uni-dimensional measure of the cardiac abnormalities present in each windowed decomposed time series ([0036] ensemble averaging).
However, Houben fails to disclose:
wherein each of the plurality of overlapping windows has a small window period to identify ectopic beat in a short period to improve accuracy in computing Atrial Fibrillation (AF) burden, and analyzing the time series data over the short period, provides information extraction mechanism from the small window period with unique combination of a plurality of features for deriving accurate insights when number of windows are high and increases training instances;
deriving via the one or more hardware processors, a plurality of features from at least one of the RAW data and the TSA data or both of the RAW data and the TSA data, wherein the plurality of features comprises:
a set of chaos-related statistical features comprising,
a non-linearity feature and a Chebyshev distance feature for the RAW data and the TSA data, and
a spectral flatness feature and a self-similarity feature for the RAW data, to add multiple dimensions to the chaos feature for generating a holistic view of the cardiac abnormalities; and
a set of statistical features comprising,
a serial correlation feature, a skewness feature and a kurtosis feature for the RAW data and the TSA data,
a trend feature and a seasonality feature for the TSA data, and
a periodicity feature for the RAW data, providing statistical distribution of the cardiac abnormalities;
identifying via the one or more hardware processors, a set of significant features from among the plurality of features using a feature importance technique;
training via the one or more hardware processors, the chaos-based classification model on the set of significant features derived for each of the plurality of subject to classify the plurality of subjects into one of an abnormal class and a normal class based on global features extracted from the time series, wherein the chao-based classification based on the global features extracted reduces dimensionality of the time series and less sensitive to missing or noisy data;
sending results of the chaos-based classification model to a cloud server with minimal local processing to determine irregularity for further analysis of the AF and determination of the AF burden;
presenting the results of the chaos-based classification model and the AF burden by displaying the arrhythmia report via an Input/Output (I/O) interface to a remotely located physician in a manner that the physician understand; and
determining, via the one or more hardware processors, the cardiac abnormality utilizing the trained chaos-based classification model during an inferencing stage to classify an unseen subject into one of the normal class and the abnormal class in accordance with the set of significant features derived from the multi-lead ECG signal recorded for the unseen subject for a predefined duration of an ECG recording by segmenting the ECG recording into the plurality of overlapping windows, wherein the abnormal class indicates the unseen subject is suffering from Atrial Fibrillation (AF), and the normal class indicates the unseen subject to be healthy with Sinus Rhythm.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WILLOW GRACE WELCH whose telephone number is (703)756-1596. The examiner can normally be reached Usually M-F 8:00am - 4:00pm.
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/WILLOW GRACE WELCH/Examiner, Art Unit 3792
/Benjamin J Klein/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3792
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