DETAILED ACTION
This office action is responsive to original claims filed on 02/20/2024. Presently, Claims 1 - 9 remain pending.
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 1-9 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 chargers including a supercapacitor and a battery” (Line 4). The limitation is indefinite because it is unclear whether each of the charger includes a supercapacitor and a battery, or the claimed supercapacitor and battery, in combination, make up the “at least two chargers”. Clarification is required.
Claims 8 and 9 recite the same limitation of “the chargers including a supercapacitor and a battery” as discussed in Claim 1 above. Accordingly, clarification is required.
Claim 1 further recites the limitation of “the two chargers” (Line 5). The limitation is indefinite because it is unclear which two chargers of the “at least two chargers” (Line 4) the applicant is referring to. For present purposes of examination, “the two chargers” will be interpreted as the at least two chargers. Clarification is required.
Claims 2-7 are also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 12(b) because they inherit the indefiniteness of the claim(s) they respectively depend upon.
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, 2, 4, 6 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McKenna (US 20150366538 A1; hereafter McKenna), in view of Harden et al (US 20200287395 A1; hereafter Harden).
With regard to Claim 1, McKenna discloses a rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument (McKenna, Abstract; “A system includes a hand-held ultrasound imaging apparatus and a portable charger.”) for transmitting an ultrasound wave to a subject and receiving the ultrasound wave from the subject for ultrasound diagnosis (McKenna, Para 0036; “The ultrasound imaging apparatus 302 further includes transmit circuitry 312, receive circuitry 314, … the transmit circuitry 312 controls excitation of the transducer elements 310, which allows for steering and/or focusing the transmitted beam from an origin along the array and at a predetermined angle, and the receive circuitry 314 routes echo signals received by the transducer elements 310.”), the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument comprising:
at least two chargers different in type, the chargers including a supercapacitor and a battery (McKenna, Para 0040; “The ultrasound imaging apparatus 302 further includes an internal power source 328, which includes one or more of a rechargeable battery (e.g., Li-ion, nickel-cadmium (NiCad), nickel-metal hydride (NiMH), lead acid, etc.), a super capacitor and/or other power storage device …”).
McKenna does not clearly and explicitly disclose the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument comprising:
a power source controller that controls a charge operation to each of the two chargers and a power supply operation from each of the chargers to an instrument body of the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument,
wherein the power source controller controls the charge operation and the power supply operation in accordance with the type of each of the chargers as a charge target or a power supply target.
Harden in the same field of endeavor discloses a portable charging device (Harden, Abstract; “A system and method are presented relating to a hybrid portable charging device …”) comprising:
a power source controller (the management system 200) that controls a charge operation to each of the two chargers and a power supply operation from each of the chargers to an instrument body of the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument (Harden, Para 0024; “…the management system 200 for the charging device … is shown with three internal logic subcomponents, namely input or charging logic 210, standby logic 220, and output logic 230.”),
wherein the power source controller controls the charge operation (Harden, Para 0028; “FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing a method 300 for implementing the input or charging logic 210 of the management system 200.”) and the power supply operation (Harden, Para 0039; “FIG. 7 shows one method 700 for implementing the output logic 230 of the management system 200.”) in accordance with the type of each of the chargers as a charge target or a power supply target.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify McKenna, as suggested by Harden, in order to use a power source controller to control charge and power supply operation of the instrument. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification for the benefit of properly regulating the input and output power of the hybrid power device (Harden, Para 0021; “ … charging device 100 uses a unique monitoring and regulation system for controlling the input and output power of the charging device 100 in a manner specially designed to provide recharging power to a mobile device 20.”).
With regard to Claim 2, McKenna and Harden disclose the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument according to Claim 1, but do not clearly and explicitly disclose wherein after an external power source charges the supercapacitor, the power source controller performs control such that power charged in the supercapacitor is transferred to the battery.
Harden further discloses wherein after an external power source charges the supercapacitor (Harden, Para 0030; “At step 325, the management system 200 determines whether or not the supercapacitor 130 is fully charged. If not, the method 300 will supply the incoming power to the supercapacitor 130 at step 335.”), the power source controller performs control such that power charged in the supercapacitor is transferred to the battery (Harden, Para 0038; “If, however, the supercapacitor 130 contains some charge, then step 630 determines whether or not the battery 120 is fully charged. If not, then the standby logic 200 will cause the charge in the supercapacitor 130 to be used to charge the battery 120 at step 640.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify McKenna and Harden, as further suggested by Harden, in order to charge the supercapacitor first and then transfer the power from the supercapacitor to the battery. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification for the benefit of making use of the respective strength of the two different types of power storage (Harden, Para 0021; “Hybrid devices combine the long-term power storage capabilities of traditional batteries with the quick charging characteristics of a supercapacitor.”).
With regard to Claim 4, McKenna and Harden disclose the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument according to Claim 1, but do not clearly and explicitly disclose wherein in response to execution of a diagnosis mode in which large power is consumed, the power source controller performs control such that power from the supercapacitor is added to power being supplied from the battery to the instrument body.
Harden further discloses wherein in response to execution of a diagnosis mode in which large power is consumed, the power source controller performs control such that power from the supercapacitor is added to power being supplied from the battery to the instrument body (Harden, Para 0039; “In some embodiments, some power from the battery 120 will be needed to supplement the supercapacitor 130 at step 730 …”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify McKenna and Harden, as further suggested by Harden, in order to use both the battery and the supercapacitor to supply power to the instrument. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification for the benefit of supplying adequate power to ensure normal performance of the instrument.
With regard to Claim 6, McKenna and Harden disclose the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument according to Claim 1 as discussed above.
McKenna further discloses wherein the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument serves as a diagnostic ultrasound apparatus that enables display of an ultrasound image obtained due to transmission and reception of the ultrasound wave (McKenna, Para 0034; “The illustrated transducer array 308 is configured to acquire data for C-plane/scan, … . C-plane/scan imaging, generally, can include displaying images parallel to the skids surface …”).
With regard to Claim 8, McKenna discloses a rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument (McKenna, Abstract; “A system includes a hand-held ultrasound imaging apparatus and a portable charger.”) for transmitting an ultrasound wave to a subject and receiving the ultrasound wave from the subject for ultrasound diagnosis (McKenna, Para 0036; “The ultrasound imaging apparatus 302 further includes transmit circuitry 312, receive circuitry 314, … the transmit circuitry 312 controls excitation of the transducer elements 310, which allows for steering and/or focusing the transmitted beam from an origin along the array and at a predetermined angle, and the receive circuitry 314 routes echo signals received by the transducer elements 310.”), the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument including at least two chargers different in type, the chargers including a supercapacitor and a battery (McKenna, Para 0040; “The ultrasound imaging apparatus 302 further includes an internal power source 328, which includes one or more of a rechargeable battery (e.g., Li-ion, nickel-cadmium (NiCad), nickel-metal hydride (NiMH), lead acid, etc.), a super capacitor and/or other power storage device …”).
McKenna does not disclose a power source control method comprising:
charging each of the two chargers; and
supplying power from each of the chargers to an instrument body of the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument,
wherein the charging and the supplying are performed in accordance with the type of each of the chargers as a charge target or a power supply target.
Harden in the same field of endeavor discloses a power source control method (Harden, Para 0001; “the field of providing power to rechargeable electronic devices …, and a method for operating such a device.”) comprising:
charging each of the two chargers (Harden, Para 0028-0037 describes various embodiments of charging the two chargers.); and
supplying power from each of the chargers to an instrument body of the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument (Harden, Para 0039-0041 describes various embodiments of supplying power to the instrument by the two chargers.),
wherein the charging and the supplying are performed in accordance with the type of each of the chargers as a charge target or a power supply target (Harden, Para 0028-0041 describes the three logics (charging, standby and output), in which the two chargers act as different roles, either charge target or power supply target, under different conditions.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify McKenna, as suggested by Harden, in order to use a power source control method to control charge and power supply operation of the instrument. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification for the benefit of properly regulating the input and output power of the hybrid power device (Harden, Para 0021; “ … charging device 100 uses a unique monitoring and regulation system for controlling the input and output power of the charging device 100 in a manner specially designed to provide recharging power to a mobile device 20.”).
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McKenna and Harden, further in view of Aronov et al (US 11128152 B2; hereafter Aronov).
With regard to Claim 3, McKenna and Harden disclose the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument according to Claim 2 as discussed above, but do not explicitly and clearly disclose wherein the power source controller performs control such that the power charged in the supercapacitor is supplied to the instrument body while being transferred to the battery.
Aronov in the same field of endeavor discloses wherein the power source controller performs control such that the power charged in the supercapacitor is supplied to the instrument body (Aronov, Column 8, Lines 56-63; “If an external charger is not connected to a power source (OUT), then the charge-sensing element of SC charge controller 4 determines whether SC 6 is even partially charged (Step 54). If SC 6 is even partially charged, then the charge-sensing element of battery charge controller 8 determines whether battery 10 is even partially charged (Step 56). If battery 10 is not charged at all, then power is supplied solely from SC 6 via charging current to device 2 (Step 58) …”) while being transferred to the battery (Aronov, Column 8, Lines 31-38; “When an external charger is not connected to a power source (OUT) (Step 40), the charge-sensing element of SC charge controller 4 determines whether SC 6 is fully charged (Step 42). If SC 6 is even partially charged, the charge-sensing element of battery charge controller 8 then determines whether battery 10 is fully charged (Step 44). If battery 10 is not fully charged, battery 8 is charged via charging current from SC 6 (Step 46).”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify McKenna and Harden, as suggested by Aronov, in order to transfer power from the supercapacitor to the instrument body and to the battery simultaneously. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification for the benefit of ensuring that the instrument can perform its function while the battery is being slowly charged (Aronov, Column 1, Lines 65-66; “Typically, consumers of rechargeable devices do not want to wait a long time for devices to charge.”) (Aronov, Column 2, Lines 15-16; “The charge and discharge process in batteries is a slow process”).
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McKenna and Harden, further in view of Miles et al (US 20180062219 A1; hereafter Miles).
With regard to Claim 5, McKenna and Harden disclose the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument according to Claim 4 as discussed above, but do not explicitly and clearly disclose wherein in a case where the supercapacitor has residual power equal to or less than a threshold, the power source controller performs control such that power is transferred from the battery to the supercapacitor.
Miles in the same field of endeavor discloses wherein in a case where the supercapacitor has residual power equal to or less than a threshold, the power source controller performs control such that power is transferred from the battery to the supercapacitor (Miles, Para 0024; “due to the substantially high capacity of the at least one rechargeable battery 3, the at least one rechargeable battery 3 can be used to charge the supercapacitor(s) 2”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify McKenna and Harden, as suggested by Miles, in order to transfer power from the rechargeable battery to the supercapacitor. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification for the benefit of storing adequate power in the supercapacitor for potential power usage of high discharge rate (Miles, Para 0024; “The at least one rechargeable battery 3 is unable to exceed a set voltage or discharge rate, thereby preventing it from being used to supply electronic devices that have a higher rate of energy consumption.”).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McKenna and Harden, further in view of Peterson et al (US 20040181154 A1; hereafter Peterson).
With regard to Claim 7, McKenna and Harden disclose the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument according to Claim 1 as discussed above, but do not explicitly and clearly disclose wherein the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument serves as an ultrasound probe connectable to a diagnostic ultrasound apparatus by wireless communication.
Peterson in the same field of endeavor discloses wherein the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument serves as an ultrasound probe connectable to a diagnostic ultrasound apparatus by wireless communication (Peterson, Para 0014; “Referring first to FIG. 1, a wireless ultrasound probe constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention is shown.”) (Peterson, Para 0020; “Located at the rear of the printed circuit board 82 are the modulator/demodulator and transceiver 60 for wireless communication with the external ultrasound processing and display system.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify McKenna and Harden, as suggested by Peterson, in order to transmit the acquired signals to a conventional ultrasound system. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification for the benefit of fully processing the acquired signals and performing more advanced processing or analysis steps (Peterson, Para 0015; “The partially beamformed signals are prepared for transmission to an ultrasound system processor where the remaining beamforming will be performed and the beamformed signals processed for display.”).
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McKenna, in view of Aronov.
With regard to Claim 9, McKenna discloses a rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument being for transmitting an ultrasound wave to a subject and receiving the ultrasound wave from the subject for ultrasound diagnosis (McKenna, Para 0036; “The ultrasound imaging apparatus 302 further includes transmit circuitry 312, receive circuitry 314, … the transmit circuitry 312 controls excitation of the transducer elements 310, which allows for steering and/or focusing the transmitted beam from an origin along the array and at a predetermined angle, and the receive circuitry 314 routes echo signals received by the transducer elements 310.”), the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument including at least two chargers different in type, the chargers including a supercapacitor and a battery (McKenna, Para 0040; “The ultrasound imaging apparatus 302 further includes an internal power source 328, which includes one or more of a rechargeable battery (e.g., Li-ion, nickel-cadmium (NiCad), nickel-metal hydride (NiMH), lead acid, etc.), a super capacitor and/or other power storage device …”).
McKenna does not disclose a non-transitory recording medium storing a computer readable program for causing a controller for a rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument to perform predetermined processing comprising:
charging each of the two chargers; and
supplying power from each of the chargers to an instrument body of the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument,
wherein the charging and the supplying are performed in accordance with the type of each of the chargers as a charge target or a power supply target.
Aronov in the same field of endeavor discloses a non-transitory recording medium storing a computer readable program (Aronov, Column 5, Lines 16-18; “… a non-transitory computer-readable medium, having computer-readable code embodied on the non-transitory computer-readable medium …”) for causing a controller for an instrument to perform predetermined processing comprising:
charging each of the two chargers (Aronov, Figure 2 shows that both supercapacitor and battery can be charged); and
supplying power from each of the chargers to an instrument body of the rechargeable portable ultrasound instrument (Aronov, Figure 4 shows that each of the supercapacitor and the battery can be used to supply energy to the instrument),
wherein the charging and the supplying are performed in accordance with the type of each of the chargers as a charge target or a power supply target (Aronov, Figures 2-4 describes that under different conditions, the supercapacitor and the battery can be used as target for being charged or for supplying power).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify McKenna, as suggested by Aronov, in order to use a computer readable program for causing a controller to control charge and power supply operation of the instrument. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification for the benefit of properly regulating the input and output power of the hybrid power device (Harden, Para 0021; “ … charging device 100 uses a unique monitoring and regulation system for controlling the input and output power of the charging device 100 in a manner specially designed to provide recharging power to a mobile device 20.”).
Conclusion
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/L.Z./Examiner, Art Unit 3798
/PASCAL M BUI PHO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3798