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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on February 02, 2024, January 17, 2025, April 04, 2025, February 03, 2026, March 11, 2026, and April 23, 2026 have been received and considered by the Examiner.
Election/Restriction
Restriction to one of the following inventions is required under 35 U.S.C. 121:
Claims 1-12, drawn to a product, classified in G01F1/667
Claims 13-20, drawn to process of use, classified in A61B8/06
The inventions are independent or distinct, each from the other because: Inventions I and II are related as product and process of use. The inventions can be shown to be distinct if either or both of the following can be shown: (1) the process for using the product as claimed can be practiced with another materially different product or (2) the product as claimed can be used in a materially different process of using that product. See MPEP § 806.05(h). In the instant case, the method of determining a velocity of blood using an ultrasound does not require a transducer, a receiver, a processor, or a display as recited in Claim 1. Thus, the process of use can be accomplished through manual administration/adjustment by a physician, not requiring a product incorporating an electronically-connected processor or a visual display of the determined outputs. Conversely, the product could be used with a method that necessitates a processor to control the flow detector in response to the emissions from the piezoelectric crystal and/or the receiver.
Restriction for examination purposes as indicated is proper because all the inventions listed in this action are independent or distinct for the reasons given above and there would be a serious search and/or examination burden if restriction were not required because one or more of the following reasons apply:
The inventions have acquired a separate status in the art in view of their different classification (and thus different classes must be searched);
The inventions have acquired a separate status in the art due to their recognized divergent subject matter;
The inventions require a different field of search (for example, searching different classes/subclasses or electronic resources, or employing different search queries);
The prior art applicable to one invention would not likely be applicable to another invention;
The inventions are likely to raise different non-prior art issues under 35 U.S.C. 101 and/ 35 U.S.C. 112(a).
Applicant is advised that the reply to this requirement to be complete must include (i) an election of an invention to be examined even though the requirement may be traversed (37 CFR 1.143) and (ii) identification of the claims encompassing the elected invention.
The election of an invention may be made with or without traverse. To reserve a right to petition, the election must be made with traverse. If the reply does not distinctly and specifically point out supposed errors in the restriction requirement, the election shall be treated as an election without traverse. Traversal must be presented at the time of election in order to be considered timely. Failure to timely traverse the requirement will result in the loss of right to petition under 37 CFR 1.144. If claims are added after the election, applicant must indicate which of these claims are readable upon the elected invention.
Should applicant traverse on the ground that the inventions are not patentably distinct, applicant should submit evidence or identify such evidence now of record showing the inventions to be obvious variants or clearly admit on the record that this is the case. In either instance, if the examiner finds one of the inventions unpatentable over the prior art, the evidence or admission may be used in a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) of the other invention.
During a telephone conversation with Katherine Mead on June 11, 2026 a provisional election was made without traverse to prosecute the invention of Group I, Claims 1-12. Affirmation of this election must be made by applicant in replying to this Office action. Claims 13-20 are withdrawn from further consideration by the examiner, 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a non-elected invention.
Claim Objections
Claim 2 objected to because of the following informalities: “a housing configured to enclose the piezoelectric crystal, the piezoelectric crystal” should “a housing configured to enclose
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1 and 3-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ayati et al. (US 20100022886 A1,hereinafter "Ayati") in view Stehle et al. (US 20210282748 A1, hereinafter "Stehle").
Regarding Claim 1, Ayati discloses: A flow detector, comprising: a transducer (Paragraph 0011, In accordance with the principles of the present invention an ultrasonic transducer is attached over the carotid artery and used to sense the velocity of blood movement in the carotid artery during the administration of CPR) comprising:
a transducer (Paragraph 0022, Each pair of transducer elements includes a transmitting element (T1, T2, etc.) and a receiving element (R1, R2, etc.) which enables operation in a continuous wave (CW) ultrasound mode: while the transmitting element is transmitting a wave, the corresponding receiving element is receiving echoes returned in response to the transmission. In this example the transducer elements are unfocussed and individually collimated with a cross-over at a depth of 1.5-2 cm and a range of 0.5-4 cm over which the apertures of the transmit and receive beams overlap so that echoes produced by a transmit transducer element will be received by the corresponding receive transducer element) being configured to emit ultrasound from the curved surface toward a blood vessel in a first direction (Paragraph 0023, FIG. 2a is a side view of an example of transducers 1-5. In this example it is seen that the top transmitting surfaces 6 of the transducer elements are rounded. In this example the transducer elements are curved with a 25 mm radius of curvature. The rounding of the transmitting surfaces causes the emitted ultrasound to diverge and thereby insonify a greater area of the body, increasing the likelihood that a target vessel will be insonified and preventing any dead zones between the transducer elements. As an alternative to rounding the shape of the transducer a lens may be used above a flat emitting surface to cause the emitted ultrasound to diverge);
and a receiver configured to detect a reflection of the ultrasound from blood flowing in a blood vessel in a second direction (Paragraph 0025, FIG. 3a shows one example of how the transducer elements of a transducer pair may be positioned in the matrix 12 for improved signal reception[…] To reduce the probability of this orthogonal orientation the transducer elements are inclined at a shallow angle as shown in FIG. 3a. With the transmitting element T inclined as shown, it is seen that an obtuse angle L is formed between the direction 36 of wave travel and the blood flow direction 34 as indicated in FIG. 3b. In FIG. 3b the transducer elements T and R are offset from each other to enable them to be retained in the desired orientation by a matrix 12 of smaller thickness Th rather than the greater thickness of the matrix seen in FIG. 3a, thereby reducing the thickness of the sensor strip), the first direction being non-perpendicular to the second direction (Paragraph 0026 In the example of FIGS. 3a and 3b the element inclination angles the beam direction laterally with respect to the length dimension of the row of transducers, effectively causing the transducers to look to the side of the sensor strip. This works well when the sensor strip 10 is positioned across a blood vessel such as across the carotid artery 32 as illustrated in FIG. 4b. Positioning a sensor strip 10 across (orthogonal to) a blood vessel provides a layperson user with the greatest chance of intersecting the unseen vessel with ultrasound);
a processor configured to determine a velocity of the blood by analyzing the reflection (Paragraph 0027, FIG. 4a is a block diagram of a vital signs monitor and therapy system constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention. A central processing and control unit 160 controls the various functions and components of the system and processes vital signs data. The central processing and control unit executes processing and control algorithms appropriate for the vital signs being monitored and the treatment being carried out by the system), (Claim 9. The system of claim 1, wherein the Doppler processor further comprises a Doppler processor which acts to determine a motional characteristic from echo signals returned from flowing blood);
and a display configured to visually output an indication of the velocity of the blood (Paragraph 0031, A visual display such as a row of LEDs or a graphical display can illustrate visually the strength of the flow signal in absolute or relative terms and/or the position along the row of transducer sensors where the strongest flow signal has been detected).
Ayati does not explicitly disclose the transducer being a piezoelectric crystal, however, it is well known in the art of ultrasonic transducers to incorporate piezoelectric components.
Stehle discloses: a piezoelectric crystal (Paragraph 0041, In embodiments of the present invention, the ultrasound transducer elements may be implemented in any suitable manner. For example, the ultrasound transducer elements may be implemented by a piezoelectric ceramic material such as a lead zirconate titanate (PZT)-based material, a piezoelectric single crystal or composite material, a capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducer (CMUT) and so on. CMUT cells are specifically mentioned) with a cross-section comprising a curved surface (Paragraph 0042, The ultrasound transducer cells 130 may have any suitable shape, e.g. a circular shape or polygonal shape. A polygonal shape such as a rectangular, e.g. square, shape, a hexagonal shape, and the like, is particularly mentioned as such a shape facilitates a close packing of the ultrasound transducer cells 130 within the transducer array, wherein the gap 131 between adjacent ultrasound transducer cells 130 is minimized. The avoidance of relatively large gaps 131 between adjacent ultrasound transducer cells 130 ensures that a substantially continuous image may be generated with the ultrasound transducer array 100 and may at least reduce the formation of ultrasound artifacts such as grating lobes),
the piezoelectric crystal being configured to emit ultrasound from the curved surface toward a blood vessel in a first direction (Paragraph 0005, Such ultrasound systems typically comprise an ultrasound transducer array, e.g. as part of an ultrasound probe, for delivering ultrasound waves to a subject, e.g. to a patient being imaged or treated. Such an ultrasound transducer array typically comprises a plurality of ultrasound transducers such as piezoelectric transducer elements), (Paragraph 0080, The quantification processor produces measures of different flow conditions such as the volume rate of blood flow as well as structural measurements such as the sizes of organs and gestational age);
Both Stehle and Ayati both disclose ultrasound systems utilizing transducers and receivers to develop body imaging information. Thus, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate the teachings of Stehle’s piezoelectric elements with the vascular flow measuring system disclosed by Ayati.
Regarding Claim 3, Ayati in view of Stehle discloses all of the limitations of Claim 1. Stehle further discloses: wherein the receiver comprises the piezoelectric crystal (Paragraph 0005, Such an ultrasound transducer array typically comprises a plurality of ultrasound transducers such as piezoelectric transducer elements formed of materials such as lead zirconate titanate (PZT) or polyvinylidenefluoride (PVDF) and capacitive micro-machined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) elements in which a membrane including a first electrode over a cavity comprising a second electrode opposite the first electrode and separated therefrom by the cavity is used to generate the ultrasound waves (or receive the ultrasound waves in a receive mode) through application of an appropriate stimulus, e.g. an alternating current, to the first and second electrodes).
Regarding Claim 4, Ayati discloses: A transducer (Paragraph 0011, In accordance with the principles of the present invention an ultrasonic transducer is attached over the carotid artery and used to sense the velocity of blood movement in the carotid artery during the administration of CPR), comprising:
a non-cubic transducer (Paragraph 0022, Each pair of transducer elements includes a transmitting element (T1, T2, etc.) and a receiving element (R1, R2, etc.) which enables operation in a continuous wave (CW) ultrasound mode: while the transmitting element is transmitting a wave, the corresponding receiving element is receiving echoes returned in response to the transmission. In this example the transducer elements are unfocussed and individually collimated with a cross-over at a depth of 1.5-2 cm and a range of 0.5-4 cm over which the apertures of the transmit and receive beams overlap so that echoes produced by a transmit transducer element will be received by the corresponding receive transducer element) comprising an emitting side configured to emit ultrasound toward a blood vessel (Paragraph 0023, FIG. 2a is a side view of an example of transducers 1-5. In this example it is seen that the top transmitting surfaces 6 of the transducer elements are rounded. In this example the transducer elements are curved with a 25 mm radius of curvature. The rounding of the transmitting surfaces causes the emitted ultrasound to diverge and thereby insonify a greater area of the body, increasing the likelihood that a target vessel will be insonified and preventing any dead zones between the transducer elements. As an alternative to rounding the shape of the transducer a lens may be used above a flat emitting surface to cause the emitted ultrasound to diverge);
and a receiver configured to detect a reflection of the ultrasound from blood in a blood vessel (Paragraph 0025, FIG. 3a shows one example of how the transducer elements of a transducer pair may be positioned in the matrix 12 for improved signal reception[…] To reduce the probability of this orthogonal orientation the transducer elements are inclined at a shallow angle as shown in FIG. 3a. With the transmitting element T inclined as shown, it is seen that an obtuse angle L is formed between the direction 36 of wave travel and the blood flow direction 34 as indicated in FIG. 3b. In FIG. 3b the transducer elements T and R are offset from each other to enable them to be retained in the desired orientation by a matrix 12 of smaller thickness Th rather than the greater thickness of the matrix seen in FIG. 3a, thereby reducing the thickness of the sensor strip).
Ayati does not explicitly disclose the transducer being a piezoelectric crystal, however, it is well known in the art of ultrasonic transducers to incorporate piezoelectric components.
Stehle discloses: a non-cubic piezoelectric crystal (Paragraph 0041, the ultrasound transducer elements may be implemented by a piezoelectric ceramic material such as a lead zirconate titanate (PZT)-based material, a piezoelectric single crystal or composite material, a capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducer (CMUT) and so on), (Paragraph 0042, The ultrasound transducer cells 130 may have any suitable shape, e.g. a circular shape or polygonal shape. A polygonal shape such as a rectangular, e.g. square, shape, a hexagonal shape, and the like, is particularly mentioned as such a shape facilitates a close packing of the ultrasound transducer cells 130 within the transducer array, wherein the gap 131 between adjacent ultrasound transducer cells 130 is minimized)
Both Stehle and Ayati both disclose ultrasound systems utilizing transducers and receivers to develop body imaging information. Thus, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate the teachings of Stehle’s piezoelectric elements with the vascular flow measuring system disclosed by Ayati.
Regarding Claim 5, Ayati in view of Stehle discloses all of the limitations of Claim 4. Stehle further discloses: wherein the non-cubic piezoelectric crystal comprises zirconate titanate, barium titanate, or lithium niobate (Paragraph 0041, the ultrasound transducer elements may be implemented by a piezoelectric ceramic material such as a lead zirconate titanate (PZT)-based material, a piezoelectric single crystal or composite material, a capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducer (CMUT) and so on).
Regarding Claim 6, Ayati in view of Stehle discloses all of the limitations of Claim 4. Stehle further discloses: wherein the non-cubic piezoelectric crystal has a polygonal cross-section, the polygonal cross-section comprising greater than four sides, and wherein the emitting side of the non-cubic piezoelectric crystal comprises one of the greater than four sides of the polygonal cross-section (Paragraph 0042, The ultrasound transducer cells 130 may have any suitable shape, e.g. a circular shape or polygonal shape. A polygonal shape such as a rectangular, e.g. square, shape, a hexagonal shape, and the like, is particularly mentioned as such a shape facilitates a close packing of the ultrasound transducer cells 130 within the transducer array, wherein the gap 131 between adjacent ultrasound transducer cells 130 is minimized).
Regarding Claim 7, Ayati in view of Stehle discloses all of the limitations of Claim 4. Ayati further discloses: wherein the non-cubic piezoelectric crystal comprises a circular cross-section, and wherein the emitting side of the non-cubic piezoelectric crystal comprises a curved side of the circular cross-section (Paragraph 0023, FIG. 2a is a side view of an example of transducers 1-5. In this example it is seen that the top transmitting surfaces 6 of the transducer elements are rounded. In this example the transducer elements are curved with a 25 mm radius of curvature. The rounding of the transmitting surfaces causes the emitted ultrasound to diverge and thereby insonify a greater area of the body, increasing the likelihood that a target vessel will be insonified and preventing any dead zones between the transducer elements. As an alternative to rounding the shape of the transducer a lens may be used above a flat emitting surface to cause the emitted ultrasound to diverge), (Stehle, Paragraph 0042, The ultrasound transducer cells 130 may have any suitable shape, e.g. a circular shape or polygonal shape. A polygonal shape such as a rectangular, e.g. square, shape, a hexagonal shape, and the like, is particularly mentioned as such a shape facilitates a close packing of the ultrasound transducer cells 130 within the transducer array, wherein the gap 131 between adjacent ultrasound transducer cells 130 is minimized).
Regarding Claim 8, Ayati in view of Stehle discloses all of the limitations of Claim 4. Ayati further discloses: wherein the non-cubic piezoelectric crystal comprises a cross-section with a curved side, and wherein the emitting side of the non-cubic piezoelectric crystal comprises the curved side of the cross-section (Paragraph 0023, FIG. 2a is a side view of an example of transducers 1-5. In this example it is seen that the top transmitting surfaces 6 of the transducer elements are rounded. In this example the transducer elements are curved with a 25 mm radius of curvature. The rounding of the transmitting surfaces causes the emitted ultrasound to diverge and thereby insonify a greater area of the body, increasing the likelihood that a target vessel will be insonified and preventing any dead zones between the transducer elements. As an alternative to rounding the shape of the transducer a lens may be used above a flat emitting surface to cause the emitted ultrasound to diverge).
Regarding Claim 9, Ayati in view of Stehle discloses all of the limitations of Claim 4. Ayati further discloses: wherein the non-cubic piezoelectric crystal is configured to emit the ultrasound in a first direction (Paragraph 0025, FIG. 3a shows one example of how the transducer elements of a transducer pair may be positioned in the matrix 12 for improved signal reception[…] To reduce the probability of this orthogonal orientation the transducer elements are inclined at a shallow angle as shown in FIG. 3a. With the transmitting element T inclined as shown, it is seen that an obtuse angle L is formed between the direction 36 of wave travel and the blood flow direction 34 as indicated in FIG. 3b. In FIG. 3b the transducer elements T and R are offset from each other to enable them to be retained in the desired orientation by a matrix 12 of smaller thickness Th rather than the greater thickness of the matrix seen in FIG. 3a, thereby reducing the thickness of the sensor strip), and wherein the blood in the blood vessel is flowing in a second direction that is non-perpendicular to the first direction (Paragraph 0026 In the example of FIGS. 3a and 3b the element inclination angles the beam direction laterally with respect to the length dimension of the row of transducers, effectively causing the transducers to look to the side of the sensor strip. This works well when the sensor strip 10 is positioned across a blood vessel such as across the carotid artery 32 as illustrated in FIG. 4b. Positioning a sensor strip 10 across (orthogonal to) a blood vessel provides a layperson user with the greatest chance of intersecting the unseen vessel with ultrasound).
Regarding Claim 10, Ayati in view of Stehle discloses all of the limitations of Claim 9. Ayati further discloses: a housing configured to enclose the non-cubic piezoelectric crystal and the receiver, the housing comprising a surface configured to contact skin (Paragraph 0022, The transducers are enclosed in a flexible matrix 12 which can bend to conform to the shape of the skin surface to which the strip is applied. The transducers in the illustrated example are separated by a distance of 1-2 mm so that the row of transducers in the matrix can be bent. The matrix 12 maintains the alignment of the transducers and provides electrical insulation from the body and may be made of silicone or RTV rubber, for instance),
wherein the first direction is non-perpendicular to the surface of the housing (Paragraph 0015, FIGS. 3a-3b illustrate the inclination of the transducers of an ultrasonic sensor strip in accordance with the principles of the present invention), and wherein the non-cubic piezoelectric crystal is configured to emit the ultrasound through the surface of the housing (Paragraph 0022, The skin-contacting surface of the matrix of transducers is covered with a material which provides good acoustic coupling between the matrix 12 and the body).
Regarding Claim 11, Ayati in view of Stehle discloses all of the limitations of Claim 4. Ayati further discloses: an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) configured to generate a digital signal indicative of the reflection (Paragraph 0028, The transmit waveforms are amplified by an amplifier 42 and applied to the transmit transducer elements T1-T5. The receive transducer elements R 1-R5 are coupled to a multiplexer 44 which couples the signals received by one of the receive transducer elements to its output […] The filtered quadrature components are filtered by Doppler filters 66 and 68 and applied to the two inputs of a dual analog to digital converter 70 which digitizes the Doppler signals. The Doppler signals are translated to the Doppler spectrum by a fast Fourier transform (FFT) processor 72).
Regarding Claim 12, Ayati in view of Stehle discloses all of the limitations of Claim 4. Ayati further discloses: a processor configured to determine a velocity of the blood (Paragraph 0011, One or more measures of blood flow are developed from Doppler processing of the ultrasound signals which are used in the guidance of the administration of CPR) by determining a difference between a frequency of the ultrasound emitted by the non-cubic piezoelectric crystal and a frequency of the reflection of the ultrasound from the blood in the blood vessel (Paragraph 0028, The transmit waveforms exhibit a nominal frequency in the range of 3-7 MHz and in this example have a nominal frequency of 5 MHz, which is typical for vascular ultrasound applications. The transmit waveforms are amplified by an amplifier 42 and applied to the transmit transducer elements T1-T5. The receive transducer elements R 1-R5 are coupled to a multiplexer 44 which couples the signals received by one of the receive transducer elements to its output. […] The Doppler signals are translated to the Doppler spectrum by a fast Fourier transform (FFT) processor 72. FFT processing for Doppler signals is well known in the art with different implementations described for instance in "Discrete-Time Signal Processing," by Oppenheim & Schafer (Prentice Hall, 1989). In a typical implementation consecutive overlapping sequences of Doppler samples are loaded into sliding sample window registers padded with zeroes and processed to produce Doppler frequency signals fD in a Doppler spectrogram centered around zero (DC) and bounded by ±1/2 the Doppler sampling frequency determined by the transmission interval rate, which is generally in the kiloHertz range), (Paragraph 0029, The Doppler frequency fD of the valid signal indicates the flow velocity and the peak signal indicates the maximum instantaneous flow rate caused by the CPR).
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ayati (US 20100022886 A1) in view Stehle (US 20210282748 A1), further in view of Siedenburg (US 20180199834 A1).
Regarding Claim 2, Ayati in view of Stehle discloses all of the limitations of Claim 1. Ayati further discloses: a housing configured to enclose the piezoelectric crystal, the piezoelectric crystal, the receiver, the housing comprising a surface configured to contact skin (Paragraph 0022, The transducers are enclosed in a flexible matrix 12 which can bend to conform to the shape of the skin surface to which the strip is applied. The transducers in the illustrated example are separated by a distance of 1-2 mm so that the row of transducers in the matrix can be bent. The matrix 12 maintains the alignment of the transducers and provides electrical insulation from the body and may be made of silicone or RTV rubber, for instance)
wherein the first direction is non-perpendicular to the surface of the housing (Paragraph 0015, FIGS. 3a-3b illustrate the inclination of the transducers of an ultrasonic sensor strip in accordance with the principles of the present invention),
and wherein the piezoelectric crystal is configured to emit the ultrasound through the surface of the housing (Paragraph 0022, The skin-contacting surface of the matrix of transducers is covered with a material which provides good acoustic coupling between the matrix 12 and the body).
Ayati in view of Stehle discloses processor elements (Paragraph 0027, FIG. 4a is a block diagram of a vital signs monitor and therapy system constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention. A central processing and control unit 160 controls the various functions and components of the system and processes vital signs data. The central processing and control unit executes processing and control algorithms appropriate for the vital signs being monitored and the treatment being carried out by the system.), but does not explicitly disclose the processor enclosed in the housing
Siedenburg does disclose a housing configured to enclose (Paragraph 0033, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing components of a medical device made according to embodiments. In this particular example, the medical device is a vital signs monitor 300, although many components are common to other medical devices. These components can be, for example, in vital signs monitor 100 of FIG. 1. The components shown in FIG. 3 can be provided in a housing 301, also known as a casing. It will be appreciated that, in other embodiments, these components may be implemented in separate housings or as sub-components of various other devices) the piezoelectric crystal, the piezoelectric crystal (Paragraph 0040, In one embodiment, vital signs monitor 300 further includes an ultrasound transducer 360. The transducer 360 is preferably enclosed in a case to insulate it from electrical interference. The transducer 360 includes, in this embodiment, an active element 361 is made of piezoelectric material (e.g., PZT) or, alternatively, micromachined ultrasonic transducers (MUT) or other MEMS devices (e.g., PMUT devices, or the like). The active element 361 may be a single element or an array), the receiver, and the processor (Paragraph 0030, The handheld NIBP monitor 220 may be sized and configured for easy portable use. In such a case, the handheld NIBP monitor 220 may include a transducer and a housing. The transducer of the handheld NIBP monitor 220 may operate in similar fashion to the transducer of the ultrasound machine 210. Likewise, electronic components that perform computational functions may be contained within the housing)
Ayati in view of Stehle and Sidenburg both disclose ultrasound systems utilizing transducers and receivers to develop body imaging information. It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate the teachings of Siedenburg’s fully enclosed device so as to provide a convenient, handheld alternative to the apparatus taught by Ayati in view of Stehle.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Moehring et al. (US 20120226163 A1) discloses a medical doppler ultrasound system for locating and tracking blood flow
Hansen (US 3987673 A) discloses ultrasonic transducer devices for measuring blood flow in a vascular channel
Rock et al. (US 20020173725 A1) discloses a cardiac resuscitation apparatus that utilizes a Doppler pad
Zeidan et al. (US 20180043395A1) discloses an ultrasonic transducer for measuring flow rate of a fluid
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MISHAL Z HUSSAIN whose telephone number is (703)756-1206. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 8:30am - 5:00pm.
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, Brandy S. Lee can be reached at (571) 270-7410. 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.
/MISHAL HUSSAIN/
Examiner
Art Unit 3785
/BRANDY S LEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3785
Prosecution Insights