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 Amendment
The Amendment filed December 5th, 2025 has been entered. Claims 1-10, 12-15 and 17-18 have been amended. Claim 16 has been cancelled. Claims 1-15 and 17-18 remain pending and rejected in the application. Applicant’s amendments to the specifications have overcome each and every objection previously set forth in the Non-Final Office Action mailed August 6th, 2025 and have therefore been withdrawn.
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 (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 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, 5, 9-12, 14, 17 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kozuka et al. (U.S. Patent: #10,492,883 B2), hereinafter Kozuka, in view of Reicher et al. (Pub. No.: US 2017/020020 A1), hereinafter Reicher and further in view of Ishigaki et al. (Pub. No.: US 2022/0405992 A1), hereinafter Ishigaki.
Regarding claim 1, Kozuka discloses a medical image processing apparatus (FIG. 1 and Col. 10, Lines 49-51 teach that FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a functional configuration of a case display apparatus according to a first embodiment) comprising processing circuitry (Col. 24, Lines 41-47 teach that in a specific example, the case display apparatus may be realized in the form of a computer system including a microprocessor, a ROM, a RAM, a hard disk drive, a display unit, a keyboard, a mouse, and the like. In the RAM or the hard disk drive, a computer program is stored. The microprocessor operates according to the computer program such that the functions of the case display apparatus are achieved) configured to:
receive an instruction to move a slice position when a three-dimensional medical image including a plurality of slice images of a subject is displayed (Col. 12, Lines 3-6 teach that when a tomographic image is displayed on the display device 200, the user input obtainer 20 may receive an image movement instruction as input information given using the input device 100),
and control a display to display a slice image at a destination slice position as a first image when the received instruction is an instruction to move the slice position by less than a predetermined interval (Col. 12 Lines 36-48 teach that when the slice position selector 25 receives the image movement instruction from the user input obtainer 20, the slice position selector 25 determines a position to which the tomographic image is to be moved, and further determines the image ID of the tomographic image to be displayed. That is, when the identification information specifies that the slice position shift is to be performed, a tomographic image at a destination of the slice position shift is determined, based on the displacement amount, from a tomographic image set including the tomographic image being currently displayed on the display device 200 (that is, from a set of tomographic images captured at the same time as the tomographic image being currently displayed was captured). Additionally, Col. 21, Lines 4-9 teach that the user input obtainer 20 determines whether a predetermined period of time has elapsed without receiving an image movement instruction from the input device 100 (S31). The predetermined period of time may be set, taking into account the usual user operation, for example, to about 3 seconds),
and to control the display to display a second image, so as to reflect information on a plurality of slice images including the slice image at the destination slice position when the received instruction is an instruction to move the slice position by more than the predetermined interval (Col. 21, Lines 22-30 teach that in step S33, the displaying image obtainer 30A and the display information generator 35A control displaying so as to move the slice position up and down. More specifically, the displaying image obtainer 30A reads out, from the image storage device 300, a predetermined number of tomographic images in a range adjacent in terms of slice position to the tomographic image being currently displayed, and the displaying image obtainer 30A outputs the acquired tomographic images to the display information generator 35A). However, Kozuka fails to disclose display a second image which is a slab image generated by at least any one of a maximum intensity projection method, a minimum intensity projection method and a statistical process based on a group of slice images, in association with a movement instruction received.
Reicher discloses display a second image which is a slab image generated by at least any one of a maximum intensity projection method, a minimum intensity projection method and a statistical process based on a group of slice images, in association with a movement instruction received (Paragraph 87 teaches that medical images may be reconstructed and/or rendered from 3D or volumetric image data using methods including multiplanar reformation/reconstruction (MPR), maximum intensity projection (MIP), and/or the like (including, e.g., any Computerized Advanced Processing (CAP), as described below). FIG. 9 illustrates an example of a medical image 912 and possible attributes that may be associated with a medical image. Additionally, paragraph 58 teaches that according to an aspect, the one or more processors are configured to execute the program instructions to further cause the one or more processors to: access a plurality of user-defined CAP rules; identify a CAP rule associated with the set of medical imaging data; and determine the CAP action indicated by the rule.). Since Kozuka teaches the initial apparatus steps involving receiving instructions to control a display that displays multiple slice images (and/or slabs) for viewing purposes and Reicher teaches a method of viewing and generating the images by a maximum intensity projection (MIP) method and implementing user-defined instructions/rules in relation to viewing medical images, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine the features together so that the MIP method and user-defined viewing instructions could also be utilized for rendering any of the slice/slab images for a user to select and view.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kozuka to incorporate the teachings of Reicher, so that the combined features together would improve the overall functionality of the generating and selecting of the different slice images and slabs by incorporating a known method in the art, such as maximum intensity projection (MIP).
Furthermore, Kozuka in view of Reicher fail to disclose move the slice position by an interval equal to or more than the predetermined interval.
Ishigaki discloses move the slice position by an interval equal to or more than the predetermined interval (FIG. 18 and paragraph 159 teaches that as illustrated in FIG. 18, the computer may extract a group of tomographic images that includes the same target (region of interest, for example) from a plurality of tomographic images constituting a three-dimensional medical image, select a representative tomographic image from the extracted group of tomographic images, and add the computer-added additional information only to the selected tomographic image. In this case, for example, the computer identifies, as the same region of interest, regions of interest for which an absolute value of a difference between barycentric positions of the regions of interest detected in consecutive tomographic images is less than or equal to a predetermined first threshold value and an absolute value of a difference between areas of the regions of interest is less than or equal to a predetermined second threshold value. In this case, values set in advance as upper-limit values of the respective differences of the same region of interest between consecutive tomographic images can be used as the first threshold value and the second threshold value.). Since Kozuka in view of Reicher teach the initial apparatus steps involving receiving instructions to control a display that displays multiple slice images (and/or slabs) for viewing purposes and Ishigaki teaches a method of viewing similar and consecutive slice images based on predetermined rules and thresholds that are equal to a predetermined amount, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine the features together so that the predetermined rule for moving through and viewing multiple slice images would then satisfy a predetermined interval amount based on instructions on which slice images should be moved through.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kozuka in view of Reicher to incorporate the teachings of Ishigaki, so that the combined features together would improve the overall functionality of moving through and selecting different slice images and slabs by incorporating a movement interval that would be equal to a predetermined interval, which would help to focus on similar specific images nearby to the initial starting position image.
Furthermore, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose wherein the predetermined interval is a movement distance of two or more consecutive slices (Paragraph 126 of Ishigaki teaches that as described above, according to the present embodiment, in response to the instruction from the user, control is performed to display only the specific tomographic images with the additional information in the order according to the depth direction of the plurality of tomographic images. Thus, for example, even if the user does not perform an operation such as dragging the slider SD to a position of a specific tomographic image with a marking indicating that the additional information is added on the slider bar SB, only the specific tomographic images with the additional information can be displayed in the order according to the depth direction. The display control apparatus 12 according to the present embodiment allows the user to consecutively observe only the specific tomographic images with the additional information while skipping the tomographic images that are without any additional information and thus are less likely to be observed by the user than the specific tomographic images with the additional information. Additionally, FIG. 21 and Col. 22, Lines 1-24 of Kozuka teach that the amount of the up-and-down movement of the slice position after the image capture time shift may be determined not only based on the information associated with the tomographic image sets of interest but also based on information associated with a plurality of tomographic image sets that are identical to the present tomographic image set in terms of the patient, the examination portion, and the modality but that are different from each other in terms of the image capture time. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 21, for a tomographic image set (an imaging time t−δt5) subjected to the displaying process, the amount of up-and-down movement of the slice position may be determined based on sizes or ranges of lesions in tomographic image sets of different imaging times (image times t−δt6 to imaging time t) of a patient of interest. In the example illustrated in FIG. 21, in a tomographic image set of an imaging time (time t) at which the lesion has a maximum size, the amount of the up-and-down movement of the slice position is determined depending on the number of tomographic images including a lesion. Alternatively, for example, the determination may be made based on the volume of the lesion region calculated using the method described above according to the third modification of the first embodiment).
Regarding claim 4, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), additionally, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose generate slab images including the slice image and having a plurality of different slab thicknesses with respect to each slice image constituting the three-dimensional medical image, stores a group of the generated slab images in a storage circuitry (Paragraph 118 teaches that various imaging devices generate medical images having a wide range of attributes/characteristics, such as slice thicknesses and slice quantities included in respective image series. Thus, medical images of various modalities, such as CT, MRI, PET, digital mammography (e.g., breast tomosynthesis), among others, may be processed and/or transferred for display by one or more viewing devices. The medical images may include image series with thin slices, as well as thicker slices, such as thicker axial, coronal, and/or sagittal images, for example. In one embodiment, the thin slices may be stored for occasional use in the near or long term. Additionally, FIG. 6 and paragraph 160 teach that FIG. 6 provides example display rules having conditions (left column) and associated actions (right column). For example, rule 602 specifies that when a rendering device gets an image set having each slice less than 0.5 mm thick, it will reformat the image set to output a slab having thickness 3 mm. Rules can be flexible and can be defined to trigger on a wide variety of conditions).
and acquire the slab image to be subsequently displayed, corresponding to the second image, from the group of the slab images stored in the storage circuitry, and controls the display to display the acquired slab image (Paragraph 173 of Reicher teaches that in some embodiments where an exam image set may be identified as a subsequent image set related to (e.g., related to the same patient, medical diagnosis, image plane, modality, and/or any other attribute) an image set from one or more prior exams, a rendering device may choose display parameters that best mimic display parameters from the prior exams. The display parameters may not be exact, but the rendering device may take a close approximation to present similar presentation between the related exams).
Regarding claim 5, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), in addition, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose generate the slab image from a plurality of slice images (Col. 21, Lines 22-30 of Kozuka teach that in step S33, the displaying image obtainer 30A and the display information generator 35A control displaying so as to move the slice position up and down. More specifically, the displaying image obtainer 30A reads out, from the image storage device 300, a predetermined number of tomographic images in a range adjacent in terms of slice position to the tomographic image being currently displayed, and the displaying image obtainer 30A outputs the acquired tomographic images to the display information generator 35A),
and generate the slab image to be subsequently displayed, corresponding to the second image, and control the display to display the generated slab image (Col. 16, Lines 16-26 of Kozuka teach that the displaying image obtainer 30 reads out, from the image storage device 300, the tomographic image determined by the slice position selector 25 or the image capture time selector 26, and supplies the resultant tomographic image to the display information generator 35. In this reading process, it is assumed that the tomographic image is read out from the registered image storage unit 320. The display information generator 35 generates display information including the tomographic image received from the displaying image obtainer 30 and displays the result on the display device 200 (S1A)).
Regarding claim 9, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), in addition, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose when an instruction to continuously move the slice position by the predetermined interval or more is received (Col. 17, Lines 30-35 of Kozuka teach that in the present embodiment, in step S1A, tomographic images are read out from the registered image storage unit 320. This makes it possible to display tomographic images in a manner that allows a viewer to easily recognize the tomographic images when the tomographic images are continuously changed in the time axis),
the processing circuitry is further configured to control the second image to be sequentially displayed according to the destination slice position (Col. 16, Lines 49-60 of Kozuka teach that herein, as an example, let it be assumed that there are 50 tomographic images included in the tomographic image set P, and they are sequentially identified by numbers from P1 to P50. Similarly, let it be assumed that there are 50 tomographic images included in the tomographic image set Q, and they are sequentially identified by numbers from Q1 to Q50. A tomographic image identified by P25 at a middle of the tomographic images identified by P1 to P50 is selected, and a tomographic image with the highest correlation to the tomographic image identified by P25 is selected from the tomographic images included in the tomographic image set Q).
Regarding claim 10, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), in addition, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose when a storage circuitry stores a second three-dimensional medical image to be compared with a first three-dimensional medical image that is the three-dimensional medical image (Col. 14, Lines 1-9 of Kozuka teach that the image storage device 300 is a storage device that stores captured diagnostic images. In the configuration shown in FIG. 1, the image storage device 300 includes the diagnostic image storage unit 310 and the registered image storage unit 320. The diagnostic image storage unit 310 stores original captured diagnostic images, and the registered image storage unit 320 stores diagnostic images obtained as a result of an organ position registration over a plurality of times),
upon displaying the first three-dimensional medical image, the processing circuitry is further configured to display the second three-dimensional medical image in conjunction with the first three-dimensional medical image (FIG. 11 and Col. 17, Line 63 through Col. 18, Line 12 of Kozuka teach that in the present modification, to handle the above situation, when a tomographic image is displayed, information representing the slice position and the image capture time of this tomographic image is also displayed. That is, the display information generator 35 generates the display information to be displayed on the display device 200 such that the display information includes, in addition to a tomographic image received from the displaying image obtainer 30, information representing the slice position and the image capture time of this tomographic image. FIG. 11 illustrates an example of display information according to the present modification. In the example shown in FIG. 11, in addition to a slice image, a slice position and an image capture time corresponding to the slice image being viewed are also displayed. This allows a user to clearly recognize the slice position and the image capture time of the tomographic image being currently displayed).
Regarding claim 11, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 10), in addition, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose wherein the second three-dimensional medical image is a past three-dimensional medical image to be compared with the first three-dimensional medical image or a three-dimensional processed image generated by using the first three-dimensional medical image (Col. 5, Lines 52-58 of Kozuka teach that in a case where there are many diagnostic images captured at different times, it is possible to seamlessly view a diagnostic image being currently used in a diagnosis and diagnostic images captured in the past, which makes it easier to perform a comparative reading in terms of a change in disease state and a size of a lesion among diagnostic images captured at different times).
Regarding claim 12, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), in addition, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose when a storage circuitry stores a second three-dimensional medical image of the subject taken including a captured part of a first three-dimensional medical image that is the three-dimensional medical image, the second three-dimensional medical image including a slice image having a slice thickness greater than a slice thickness of a slice image constituting the first three-dimensional medical image (Paragraph 16 of Reicher teaches that according to another aspect, applying the rule further comprises: by the one or more processors executing program instructions: selecting a group of medical images of the original series of medical images, wherein each medical image of the group of medical images has an image slice thickness greater or less than the desired image slice thickness; and reformatting each of the medical images of the group of medical images to have the desired image slice thickness),
the processing circuitry is further configured to control the display to display a slice image constituting the second three-dimensional medical image as the second image when an instruction to move the slice position by the predetermined interval or more is received (Paragraph 141 of Reicher teaches that at block 436, the system determines, based on one or more transfer and display rules, whether to transmit the images (e.g., rendered images) to one or more computing devices. If so, the system applies the transfer rules to the image series and/or images in the image series at block 440. At block 440, the determined transfer rules are applied to the image and/or image series in order to determine how the images should be transferred, and/or stored, if at all, to one or more receiving devices (e.g., a device that is scheduled to receive the particular image series or a device that requests image series). At block 450, medical images, such as thin and thick slices that meet the transfer rules, are transferred to the viewing device).
Regarding claim 14, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), in addition, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to determine whether to display the first image or the second image depending on a status of a slice position movement instruction that is waiting to be performed, and determines the number of slice images to be reflected in the second image when determining to display the second image (Col. 15, Lines 27-36 of Kozuka teach that thereafter, the user input obtainer 20 waits for an image movement instruction to be input via the input device 100 (S14), If the user input obtainer 20 receives an image movement instruction (YES in S14), then processing flow proceeds to step S15. The image movement instruction received here includes identification information specifying whether a slice position is to be moved (a slice position shift) or an image capture time is to be moved (an image capture time shift), and also includes a displacement amount specified by a user operation).
Regarding claim 17, the method steps correspond to and are rejected similarly to the apparatus steps of claim 1, in addition, Kozuka discloses a medical image processing method (Col. 25, Lines 4-7 teach that the present disclosure may be implemented as a method. The method may be realized by a computer program that is to be executed by a computer or the method may be realized by a digital signal associated with the computer program).
Regarding claim 18, the non-transitory computer readable medium steps correspond to and are rejected similarly to the apparatus steps of claim 1, in addition, Kozuka discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium (Col. 25, Lines 8-14 teach that the present disclosure may be implemented by a computer readable non-temporary storage medium, such as a flexible disk, a hard disk, a CD-ROM disk, a MO disk, a DVD disk, a DVD-ROM disk, a DVD-RAM disk, a BD (Blu-ray (registered trademark) Disc), a semiconductor memory, or the like in which the computer program or the digital signal are stored).
Claims 2, 3, 6-8, 13 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki and further in view of Bystrov et al. (Pub. No.: US 2019/00900849 A1), hereinafter Bystrov.
Regarding claim 2, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), however, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki fail to disclose wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to generate the slab image based on the group of slice images including adjacent slice images having a number corresponding to an amount of movement determined by the received instruction.
Bystrov discloses wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to generate the slab image based on the group of slice images including adjacent slice images having a number corresponding to an amount of movement determined by the received instruction (Paragraph 78 teaches that the slab 315 may encompass a plurality of slice images. The slab of FIG. 3b is shown to comprise the indicated slice image 310 of FIG. 3a and two more slice images adjacent to the indicated slice image. Additionally, paragraph 80 teaches that the navigation, as such, may enable the user to move from one slice image to another slice images in the set of slice images. Backward or forward directions of the navigation through the set of slice images may enable the user to move towards or away from a particular slice image of interest and view slice images adjacent and far away from that particular slice image). Since Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki teaches the initial apparatus steps involving receiving instructions to control a display that displays multiple slice images and Bystrov teaches instructions that correspond to displaying slabs consisting of multiple adjacent slice images and the movements to navigate between the adjacent slice images within those slabs to a specific destination slice image, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine the features together so that in addition of being able to navigate between a plurality of different slice images, those slice images could also be considered as a slab of adjacent images and can be moved through to view a particular image via a specific user instruction.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki to incorporate the teachings of Bystrov, so that the combined features together would provide the user with additional search functions that help improve the viewing adjacent slice images.
Regarding claim 3, Kozuka in view of Reicher, Ishigaki and Bystrov disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 2), in addition, Kozuka in view of Reicher, Ishigaki and Bystrov disclose wherein the group of slice images from which the slab image is generated by the processing circuitry includes slice images between the slice image at the destination slice position and a slice image at a pre-movement position (Col. 4, Lines 49-65 of Kozuka teach that in a second aspect of the present disclosure, a case display apparatus includes a display information generator that generates display information displayed on a display device, a user input obtainer that, when the display information includes a first tomographic image, receives an image movement instruction including identification information and a displacement amount, the identification information specifying a slice position shift or an image capture time shift to be performed, a slice position selector that, when the identification information specifies that the slice position shift is to be performed, determines a second tomographic image at a destination of the slice position shift from a first tomographic image set including the first tomographic image, based on a position movement amount corresponding to the displacement amount, the first tomographic image set being a first plurality of tomographic images).
Regarding claim 6, Kozuka in view of Reicher, Ishigaki and Bystrov disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 2), in addition, Kozuka in view of Reicher, Ishigaki and Bystrov disclose wherein, in a state in which the slab image is displayed on the display, when no instruction to move the slice image is received for a predetermined time, the processing circuitry is further configured to control the display to display a slice image located at a destination slice position within the group of the slice images from which the slab image is generated (FIG. 15 and Col. 20, Lines 29-37 of Kozuka teach that in the configuration shown in FIG. 15, in a case where the user input obtainer 20 does not receive a new image movement instruction within a predetermined period of time after an image capture time shift is performed on a tomographic image, a displaying image obtainer 30A and a display information generator 35A control displaying such that the slice position of the displayed tomographic image is moved up and down in a tomographic image set including a tomographic image being currently displayed).
Regarding claim 7, Kozuka in view of Reicher, Ishigaki and Bystrov disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 6), in addition, Kozuka in view of Reicher, Ishigaki and Bystrov disclose wherein, in a period in which no instruction to move the slice image is received after the slab image is displayed on the display, the processing circuitry is further configured to control a slab thickness of the slab image displayed as the second image to be reduced over time in a state of including the slice image at the destination slice position (FIG. 16 and Col. 20, Lines 43-51 of Kozuka teach that FIG. 16 is a diagram conceptually illustrating a manner in which tomographic images are displayed according to the present embodiment. In a case where when an image capture time is shifted such that a tomographic image of a capturing time (t−δt3) being currently displayed is moved to a tomographic image of capturing time (t−δt5) as illustrated in FIG. 16, if no image movement instruction is issued in a predetermined period of time thereafter, the slice position is moved up and down at the imaging time (t−δt5)).
Regarding claim 8, Kozuka in view of Reicher, Ishigaki and Bystrov disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 2), in addition, Kozuka in view of Reicher, Ishigaki and Bystrov disclose wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to control the display to display, as the second image, the slab image in which the slice image at the destination slice position determined by the amount of movement serves as a slab center (Paragraph 84 of Bystrov teaches that FIG. 6a shows the overhead view of the set 200 of slice images of FIG. 2, and FIG. 6b shows another slab 615 of the image volume during a navigation towards a destination slice image 650. The system 100 of FIG. 1 may enable the user to adjust both size and location of the slab 615 by way of the navigation commands in the navigation mode. FIG. 6c shows a size of the slab 615 of FIG. 6b being increased in response to navigation commands by adding slice images to the slab 625. FIG. 6d shows a location of the slab 625 of FIG. 6c being adjusted towards the destination slice image 650. By adjusting both size and location of the slab 515, the user may obtain a flexible selection of the number and location of the slice images which are desired to be included in the volume rendering).
Regarding claim 13, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), however, Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki fail to disclose wherein, based on a frequency with which a user instructs to move a slice position and an indicator regarding an image display update of the apparatus, the processing circuitry is further configured to determine a number of slice images to be used for image display.
Bystrov discloses wherein, based on a frequency with which a user instructs to move a slice position and an indicator regarding an image display update of the apparatus, the processing circuitry is further configured to determine a number of slice images to be used for image display (Paragraph 83 of Bystrov teaches that FIG. 5a shows the overhead view of the set 200 of slice images of FIG. 2, and FIG. 5b shows another slab 515 of the image volume during a navigation towards a destination slice image 550. The system 100 of FIG. 1 may enable the user to adjust a location of the slab 515 by way of the navigation commands in the navigation mode so that the user may be enabled to access and view further information. FIG. 5c shows a relocated slab 525 of which the location is adjusted, compared to slab 515 of FIG. 5b, towards the destination slice image 550. By displacing the slab 525 which may be towards or away from the destination slice image 550, the user may navigate back and forth through the image volume and select which slice images the user finds more desirable to be included in the slab 525 and thus in the volume rendering during the back and forth navigation. FIG. 5d shows the overhead view of the set of slice images, wherein the destination slice images 550 is indicated as the image being displayed to the user in the static viewing mode after the navigation of FIG. 5c). Since Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki teach the initial apparatus steps involving receiving instructions to control a display that displays multiple slice images and Bystrov teaches instructions that allow for a user to move and adjust the slice position and images to be used when viewing a slab grouping of images, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine the features together so that in addition to being able to navigate through multiple slice images, the user could also adjust and group nearby slice images to then view those multiple images and different positions, together as a slab, on the display.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kozuka in view of Reicher and Ishigaki to incorporate the teachings of Bystrov, so that the combined features together would allow for additional viewing functions that would improve the overall viewing of multiple slice images within a particular slab grouping.
Regarding claim 15, Kozuka in view of Reicher, Ishigaki and Bystrov disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 2), in addition, Kozuka in view of Reicher, Ishigaki and Bystrov disclose wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to determine an amount of movement by a fixed value input by a user (Col. 21, Lines 49-57 of Kozuka teach that in the present embodiment, it is assumed by way of example that the amount of up-and-down movement of the slice position after the image capture time shift is determined based on the past viewing history, the manner of determining the amount of up-and-down movement is not limited to this. For example, the number of images to be moved up and down may be fixed in a particular range, for example, to 5 images or the like including the current tomographic image).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to independent claims 1, 17 and 18 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument. The newly applied prior arts of Reicher and Ishigaki have been incorporated into the previous rejections of the independent claims and therefore teach the newly amended claim language (See respectively, claims 1, 17 and 18 above).
In regards to any additional arguments regarding any of the dependent claims 2-15, for the virtue of their dependency are moot because the independent claims are not allowable.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Velevski et al. (U.S. Patent: #11,704,850 B2) teaches a system for transmitting and viewing a series of sliced images.
Westerhoff et al. (U.S. Patent: #9,984,478 B2) teaches an apparatus and method for visualizing and viewing digital volumetric images.
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 George Renze whose telephone number is (703)756-5811. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9:00am - 6:00pm 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, Xiao Wu can be reached at (571) 272-7761. 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.
/G.R./Examiner, Art Unit 2613
/XIAO M WU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2613
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