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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the weights" in line 9. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Further lines 13-15 recite “applying an error estimator model configured to receive as input a candidate set of synthetic energy channels formed according to a candidate set of weights for the weighted combination, and to generate as output a predicted covariance matrix of outputs of a pre-defined material decomposition algorithm if the algorithm were to be applied to data comprising the candidate synthetic energy channels” (emphasis added by Examiner). Here it is unclear what the bold italized portion is claiming. The “if” appears to make this a conditional statement, however the inputs (candidate set of synthetic energy channels) are already specified by the claim language as being applied to a material decomposition algorithm to generate an output. Thus there appears to be no conditional statement and the emphasized part of the claim does not appear to be limiting the previous claim language in any manner. It would appear to the Examiner that the emphasized language is superfluous and only serves to make indefinite the previous limitation (is the algorithm being applied or not). The Examiner suggested deleting the emphasized part as the claim would be definite without it.
Claims 2-9 are rejected due to their dependency on claim 1.
Claim 10 is similarly analyzed to claim 1.
Claim 11 is rejected due to its dependency on claim 10.
Claim 12 is similarly analyzed to claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
There is no art rejection for claims 1-12 thus the claims would be allowable if the 112 rejection is overcome.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior art of record neither anticipates nor renders obvious the combination of limitations of claim 1, in particular wherein the weights of said weighted combination forming each synthetic energy channel are determined in an optimization procedure which comprises: applying an error estimator model configured to receive as input a candidate set of synthetic energy channels formed according to a candidate set of weights for the weighted combination, and to generate as output a predicted covariance matrix of outputs of a pre-defined material decomposition algorithm .
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Please see the attached 892 notice of references cited.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN B STREGE whose telephone number is (571)272-7457. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5 (PST).
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/JOHN B STREGE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2669