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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 01/06/2026 has been entered.
Status of Claims
This action is in reply to amendments filed on 01/06/2026. Claim 1 was amended. Claims 5, 14, and 15 were cancelled. No claims were added. Therefore, claims 1-4, 6-13, 16, and 17 are currently pending and have been examined.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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 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 1-4, 6-11, 13, 16, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Siemens (DE 202019005949 U1) in view of Takahashi, et al. (US 2021/0313054 A1).
With regards to claim 1, Siemens teaches a medical information processing apparatus connected to a plurality of medical devices via communication network, wherein the plurality of medical devices are remotely operated (see at least figure 1), the apparatus comprising: a display (see at least figure 1 (51, 61); a communication interface (see at least figure 1 (54, 64), ¶ 74, workstations 50, 60 also include an interface unit 54, 64 for data exchange, z. B. for data transfer with at least one of the imaging modalities 21, 22, 31, 32 (i.e. the communication channel)); an input interface configured to receive an input to remotely operate the plurality of medical devices (see at least ¶ 71, The input unit may be configured to accept user input (remote expert operator) regarding login to at least one imaging modality, procedure or protocol planning, e.g. B. adjustment of a protocol parameter, to receive written or audio chat input or the like); and processing circuitry configured to acquire, via the communication interface, workflow information indicating a plurality of medical plans executed in parallel in a plurality of medical devices (see at least figure 3, ¶ 85, Figure 3 illustrates a schedule SCH established according to one embodiment of the present invention. Line 1 (left side) represents times/durations of imaging procedures. Line 2 to line 5 represent imaging modalities 21, 22, 31, 32 in a medical facility 20, 30, here comprising CT1, CT2, MR1 and MR2. Each row in the SCH schedule represents 15-minute time slots for imaging procedures at each imaging modality. The entries for the imaging procedures each include at least the patient's name, e.g. Tischler, K., the body region to be imaged, e.g. abdomen, in special cases the type of imaging procedure can also be specified here, e.g. e.g. oncology or cardiac exam); …identify, for each medical device of the plurality of medical devices, medical processes requiring operations on the medical device via the network, based on the workflow information …(see at least ¶ 79, 85, data about the imaging procedures (body region/organ of interest, time of imaging procedure, applicable imaging modality, etc.) are recorded and a schedule is made out of the imaging procedures to be performed on particular medical devices at particular times); and control the display so as to display the medical processes identified for each of the medical devices in chronological order according to times at which the medical processes are to be performed, such that a timing of performing each medical process is identifiable (see at least figure 3).
Siemens does not explicitly teach …acquire status information indicating a status of the plurality of medical devices and/or a status around the plurality of medical devices; …and the status information. Takahashi teaches …acquire status information indicating a status of the plurality of medical devices and/or a status around the plurality of medical devices; …and the status information (see at least ¶ 0049, an information processing apparatus 12 that senses a status of each resource including equipment such as a medical instrument 11; ¶ 0055, information processing apparatus 12 transmits, to the server device 30, resource information related to the resources such as the position of the medical instrument 11 detected by the position detection unit 12a and the status of the medical instrument 11 monitored by the status monitoring unit 12b via the network NW; ¶ 0134, plurality of medical instruments). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to combine medical device scheduling method of Takahashi with the distributed medical imaging system of Siemens with the motivation of efficient operation of medical equipment and personnel (Takahashi, ¶ 0002-0003).
With regards to claim 2, Siemens teaches the medical information processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: control the display so as to display the medical processes side by side on a time axis (see at least figure 3).
With regards to claim 3, Siemens teaches the medical information processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to control the display so as to display the medical processes side by side in a timeline (see at least figure 3).
With regards to claim 4, Siemens teaches the medical information processing apparatus of claim 3, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to control the display so as to display, on the timeline, information identifying a medical process being executed (see at least figure 3).
With regards to claim 6, Siemens teaches the medical information processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the respective medical processes of a plurality of workflows executed in parallel by the plurality of medical devices have different display modes depending on a type of the medical process and/or a status of the medical process (see at least ¶ 64, different imaging modalities 21, 22, 31, 32 (CT, ultrasound, X-ray, angiography, MRT, etc.) have different user interface units 212, 222, 312, 322 which output the different interface unit data from the different imaging modalities to output units of the remote workstations 50, 60 [different display modes depending of type of medical process]).
With regards to claim 7, Takahashi teaches the medical information processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to cause the display to display, for each of the plurality of medical devices, a remaining time or an elapsed time of a medical process being executed or a time until a start of a medical process scheduled to be executed by the medical device (see at least figure 6, ¶ 0135-0136). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to combine medical device scheduling method of Takahashi with the distributed medical imaging system of Siemens with the motivation of efficient operation of medical equipment and personnel (Takahashi, ¶ 0002-0003).
With regards to claim 8, Takahashi teaches the medical information processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to display, on the display, a device screen or an external image of each of the medical devices in association with each of the medical devices displayed in an operation order (see at least figure 6). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to combine medical device scheduling method of Takahashi with the distributed medical imaging system of Siemens with the motivation of efficient operation of medical equipment and personnel (Takahashi, ¶ 0002-0003).
With regards to claim 9, Takahashi teaches the medical information processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to display, on the display, a device screen of a medical device currently being operated among the plurality of medical devices (see at least figure 6). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to combine medical device scheduling method of Takahashi with the distributed medical imaging system of Siemens with the motivation of efficient operation of medical equipment and personnel (Takahashi, ¶ 0002-0003).
With regards to claim 10, Takahashi teaches the medical information processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to display, on the display, an execution status of a workflow for each of the plurality of medical devices (see at least figure 6, ¶ 0135-0136). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to combine medical device scheduling method of Takahashi with the distributed medical imaging system of Siemens with the motivation of efficient operation of medical equipment and personnel (Takahashi, ¶ 0002-0003).
With regards to claim 11, Takahashi teaches the medical information processing apparatus of claim 10, wherein the execution status includes progress information indicating a medical process being executed by the plurality of medical devices (see at least figure 6, ¶ 0135-0136). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to combine medical device scheduling method of Takahashi with the distributed medical imaging system of Siemens with the motivation of efficient operation of medical equipment and personnel (Takahashi, ¶ 0002-0003).
With regards to claim 13, Siemens teaches the medical information processing apparatus of claim 10, wherein the execution status includes biological information of a patient (see at least figure 3, ¶ 85, scheduling entries for imaging procedures include body region to be imaged [biological information of the patient]).
With regards to claim 16, Siemens teaches the medical information processing apparatus of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of medical devices is one of an X-ray device, an X-ray CT scanner, an MRI scanner, a PET scanner, and an ultrasound device (see at least ¶ 64).
With regards to claim 17, Siemens teaches the medical information system, comprising: the medical information processing apparatus of claim 1; and the plurality of medical devices, wherein each of the plurality of medical devices is one of an X-ray device, an X-ray CT scanner, an MRI scanner, a PET scanner, and an ultrasound device (see at least ¶ 64).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Siemens (DE 202019005949 U1) in view of Takahashi, et al. (US 2021/0313054 A1) in further view of Janssen, et al. (US 2016/0300024 A1).
With regards to claim 12, Janssen teaches the medical information processing apparatus of claim 10, wherein the execution status includes interruption risk information indicating a risk of interruption of a medical process being executed (see at least ¶ 0076, overshoot [risk of interruption] for a whole medical process is determined, where overshoot is indicated as a number and color according to the amount and degree of predicted overshoot). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to combine radiation therapy workflow of Janssen with the distributed medical imaging system of Siemens with the motivation of optimal scheduling of medical processes (Janssen, ¶ 0002).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to the 35 USC § 101 rejections set forth in the previous office action have been considered, are persuasive, and have been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments with respect to the 35 USC § 103 rejections set forth in the previous office action have been considered, but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Nittka, et al. (US 2024/0055108 A1) which discloses a method for assigning a medical device may be implemented in a scheduler agent apparatus. The method may include receiving, from a patient agent apparatus, a utilization request containing patient parameters for examining a patient by a medical device from the group; determining the suitability of at least one medical device from the group for the examination based on the patient parameter or parameters and one or more device parameters; assigning a medical device determined to be suitable to the utilization request based on the patient parameter or parameters and device parameters; transmitting, to the patient agent apparatus, a notification regarding the assignment; and transmitting a notification to an device agent apparatus associated with the assigned medical device.
Rosow, et al. (US 2003/0074222 A1) which discloses integrated health care delivery network with enabling software and network technology to maximize bed resources, manage varying census levels, and avoid patient diversions through real-time monitoring, automation and communication, is disclosed. Preferably, the present invention is embodied in a bed management system that interfaces with and complements existing AdmissionlDischarge/Transfer (ADT) systems. The bed management system is an easy-to-use business intelligence application that is designed to allow administrators, clinicians and managers to easily access, analyze and display real-time patient and bed availability information from ancillary information systems, databases and spreadsheets. It enables users to see trends and relationships in hospital (bed) management data directly from their desktop personal computers.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Joey Burgess whose telephone number is (571)270-5547. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday 9-6.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Joey Burgess whose telephone number is (571)270-5547. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday 9-6.
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/JOSEPH D BURGESS/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3681