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 .
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitation(s) is/are: “information acquisition unit”, “preprocessing unit”, “learning unit” and “identification unit” in claim 7.
Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, it/they is/are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
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.
Claim(s) 1-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou (PGPub 2019/0317050) in view of Nakatomi (PGPub 2019/00995692).
Zhou discloses 1. A method for identifying cells, comprising:
acquiring cell information, the cell information comprising cellular traction force information at a point within a cell obtained via a cellular mechanical sensor, the cellular traction force information comprising a magnitude of the cellular traction force at the point; (Zhou, paragraph 47,”[0047] The real-time and quantitative measurement method for cell traction force includes the following steps:
(1) placing an AT-cut quartz crystal and a BT-cut quartz crystal in two separate culture dishes or detection cells, the AT-cut quartz crystal having the same frequency, surface morphology and/or modified surface adhesion molecules as the BT-cut quartz crystal; and
(2) adding cells to be tested to the culture dishes or the detection cells, and measuring the cell traction force ΔS by the following formula:
ΔS.sub.t=(K.sub.AT−K.sub.BT).sup.−1[t.sub.q.sup.ATΔf.sub.t.sup.AT/fr.sup.AT−tq.sup.BTΔf.sub.t.sup.BT/fr.sup.BT],”)
preprocessing the acquired cell information to generate structured cell information, the structured cell information comprising the number of cells, the number of cell features, and feature information for each cell feature; and (Zhou, paragraph 50, “6) After the experiment, collecting the medium, gently washing with PBS, adding trypsin for digestion, and counting the cells in the collected fraction with a cytometer;”” 7) Quantitatively measuring the dynamic change ΔS in the cell traction force during the cell adhesion process according to the frequency shifts Δf.sub.t.sup.AT and Δf.sub.t.sup.BT of the paired AT-cut and BT-cut quartz crystals at the time t” )
inputting the structured cell information (Zhou, paragraph 11, “ Only in this way can the cell traction force be used as an important biophysical indicator to characterize the phenotype of cells, so as to better understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of many important biological processes and be widely accepted and used in the biological fields including cell biology.”)
Zhou discloses classifying the cells, but doesn’t explicitly disclose how it does it, in particular does not expressly disclose “a machine learning model …”
Nakatomi discloses “a machine learning model ….” (Nakatomi, paragraph 104, “[0104] When a new image has been acquired by the culture observation device 1 and current quantitative data has been calculated by the living/dead determining unit 142, the predicting unit 145 reads out the quantitative data of the current culture to date from the recording unit 17 and predicts future quantitative data of living cells, dead cells, and all the cells from the read out quantitative data. For example, the predicting unit 145 predicts quantitative data for a prescribed time after the current time or for the time photographing will be next performed by the culture observation device 1. For example, extrapolation based on a polynomial approximation of a graph of the changes in the quantitative data to date over time or deep machine learning in which a recursive neural network is used based on changes in the quantitative data of past cultures over time is used in the prediction of quantitative data.”)
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention of the instant application to use the neural network of Nakatomi to classify the cells of Zhou.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been using past data to accurately predict the current samples data.
Further, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as described above by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Zhou with Nakatomi to obtain the invention as specified in claim 1.
Zhou in view of Nakatomi discloses 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the cellular traction force information further comprises a direction of the cellular traction force at the point. (Zhou, paragraph 21, “The present disclosure first proposes and utilizes AT-cut and BT-cut crystals of different orientations to realize real-time and quantitative measurement of the magnitude and direction (compressive or tensile stress) of surface stress (contraction or traction force) applied to the quartz crystals by cells during adhesion and the subsequent drug effect.”)
Zhou in view of Nakatomi discloses 3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the cellular traction force information further comprises changes in the magnitude and/or direction of the cellular traction force at the point over a time interval. (Zhou, Fig. 4, bottom of charts shows Time(hours))
Zhou in view of Nakatomi discloses 4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the cell information further comprises cell morphology information. (Zhou,” [0046] Ideally, in order to acquire dynamic information such as cell morphology and focal adhesions accompanying the change in the cell traction force” )
Zhou in view of Nakatomi discloses 5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the cell information is obtained by performing cell confining operations on the cell.(Zhou, paragraph 10, “The micro-pattern technology can be used to immobilize individual cells, reduce the difference between the cells, and control the location of the cell generated force to simplify the calculation of the force, thereby increasing the throughput of cell traction force measurement.”)
Zhou in view of Nakatomi discloses 6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising identifying the cell state based on the cellular traction force information; wherein the cell state comprises cell adhesion, cell viability, cell differentiation/activation, cell proliferation, and/or cell migration.(Zhou, paragraph 17-18, “[0018] Although the cell traction force generally refers to a force applied to the matrix by the formation of focal adhesions between the cells and the matrices, as long as the cells can adhere to the matrices, whether or not focal adhesions are formed, or even whether the adhesion is chemical or mechanical driven, a surface stress can be applied to the adhered substrate. In the absence of focal adhesion formation, the interaction of cells with substrate is referred to as a cell adhesion force.”)
Claims 7-11 are rejected under similar grounds as claims 1-6
Zhou in view of Nakatomi discloses 12. A system for cell identification, comprising: a cellular mechanical sensor and a cell identification device of claim 7.(See claim 7))
Zhou in view of Nakatomi discloses 13. The system according to claim 12, further comprising a cell morphology information acquisition device configured to acquire cell morphology information. (see claim 4)
Zhou in view of Nakatomi discloses 14. The system according to claim 13, wherein the cell morphology information acquisition device comprises a microscope camera or a video microscope. (Zhou, paragraph 46, “microscope”)
Zhou in view of Nakatomi discloses 15. The system according to claim 12, further comprising a cell confinement device configured to perform cell confining operations. (see claim 5)
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Li (“Cellular traction forces: a useful parameter in cancer research”) discloses
(Li, pg. 19039-19040,
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(Li, pg. 19041,
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, showscells). Li does not expressly disclose machine learning.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GANDHI THIRUGNANAM whose telephone number is (571)270-3261. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5PM.
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/GANDHI THIRUGNANAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2672