Prosecution Insights
Last updated: May 29, 2026
Application No. 18/409,137

EFFICIENT SEGMENTATION OF TUMOURS FROM LUNG CT

Non-Final OA §112
Filed
Jan 10, 2024
Priority
Aug 11, 2023 — IN 202331054137
Examiner
ZHANG, WAYNE
Art Unit
2672
Tech Center
2600 — Communications
Assignee
Ideas - Institute Of Data Engineering Analytics And Science Foundation
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
59%
Grant Probability
Moderate
1-2
OA Rounds
7m
Est. Remaining
91%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 59% of resolved cases
59%
Career Allowance Rate
13 granted / 22 resolved
-2.9% vs TC avg
Strong +32% interview lift
Without
With
+31.6%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 11m
Avg Prosecution
12 currently pending
Career history
40
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§103
91.4%
+51.4% vs TC avg
§112
8.6%
-31.4% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 22 resolved cases

Office Action

§112
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 . Priority Receipt is acknowledged that application claims priority to foreign application with application number IN202331054137 dated 08/11/2023. Copies of certified papers required by 37 CFR 1.55 have been received. Priority is acknowledged under 35 USC 119(e) and 37 CFR 1.78. Information Disclosure Statement The IDS dated 01/10/2024 has been considered and placed in the application file. Claim Objections Claim(s) 1-2, 4, 7-8, 16-17, and 19 are objected to for having illegible equations in each respective claim. The examiner recommends posting a higher quality version of the equations and/or increasing the size of the equation to make them more readable. Claim 11 is in improper format. All claims must end in a period. 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. Claim(s) 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b), as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. Claim(s) 11 recites “The Convolutional Neural network (CNNs) based system for image analysis as claimed in claim 3, wherein in said convolution module said DC processor blocks are included in the first four down-sampling based max-pooling encoder layers and the final four up-sampling decoder layers for gathering ROI-specific data, to lower overlap based error at the segmentation boundary while increasing the accuracy of segmentation and to enable storage of high-level semantic feature based image maps in the decoder; said WG module processor blocks interactive with DC blocks concatenates said high-level semantic feature based image maps stored in the up-sampled decoder arm of DC blocks to focus on the lower-level details in the retrieved encoder feature maps of DC blocks for merging of said up-sampled images with their equivalent encoded representations thereby enhancing significance/weightage of a pixel through said WG module allowing adaptive selection of pixel spatial information by highlighting pixels from the ROI, while suppressing the less important ones, with said last layer of WDU-Net (Deep Weighted Deformable Segmentation Network) involving sigmoid activation function based processer to generate a probabilistic ROI at the system output, as per the block based system architecture below:”. PNG media_image1.png 742 664 media_image1.png Greyscale The claim limitations states generating a probabilistic ROI using the chart system above. However, it is unclear what the chart is supposed to represent and how it is being used to generate such ROI. The examiner recommends putting the chart/image above into words that can clearly convey how the probabilistic ROI is being generated. Regarding Claims 1-20 No prior art currently reads on claims 1-20. References Cited US 20230005152 A1 to Choi et al. discusses an image segmentation apparatus using a U-net based model. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WAYNE ZHANG whose telephone number is (571) 272-0245. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 10:00-6:00 EST. 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, Ms. Sumati Lefkowitz can be reached on (571) 272-3638. 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. /WAYNE ZHANG/Examiner, Art Unit 2672 /GANDHI THIRUGNANAM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2672
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Jan 10, 2024
Application Filed
Dec 22, 2025
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §112 (current)

Precedent Cases

Applications granted by this same examiner with similar technology

Patent 12591990
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATING SPATIAL GEOMETRIC INFORMATION ESTIMATION MODEL
3y 6m to grant Granted Mar 31, 2026
Patent 12591958
INFRA-RED CONTRAST ENHANCEMENT FILTER
3y 0m to grant Granted Mar 31, 2026
Patent 12561843
METHOD FOR MANAGING IMAGE DATA, AND VEHICLE LIGHTING SYSTEM
3y 4m to grant Granted Feb 24, 2026
Patent 12536629
Image Processing Method and Electronic Device
3y 2m to grant Granted Jan 27, 2026
Patent 12536667
METHOD AND FACILITY FOR SEGMENTATION OF HIGH-CONTRAST OBJECTS IN X-RAY IMAGES
3y 4m to grant Granted Jan 27, 2026
Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

Strategy Recommendation AI-generated — please review before filing

Get a prosecution strategy drawn from examiner precedents, rejection analysis, and claim mapping.
Typically takes 5-10 seconds — AI-generated, attorney review required before filing

Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
59%
Grant Probability
91%
With Interview (+31.6%)
2y 11m (~7m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 22 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

Sign in with your work email

Enter your email to receive a magic link. No password needed.

Personal email addresses (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) are not accepted.

Free tier: 3 strategy analyses per month