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 § 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 of this title, 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 1-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nakamura (US 2019/0279751)
As for claim 1, Nakamura teaches
An information processing apparatus comprising at least one processor (Fig 2 el 11), wherein the processor is configured to:
generate a plurality of sentences based on a plurality of pieces of element information used for diagnosis (Fig 7 [0062] el 42 contains one sentence, el 45 contains 3 sentences); and
Embodiment of Fig 7 does not specifically teach,
correct, in a case where some element information among the plurality of pieces of element information is changed, only a first sentence corresponding to the element information to be changed among the plurality of sentences
However, embodiment of Fig 3-6 teaches
correct .. a sentence (Fig 6 teaches a workflow to correct/modify the diagnostic text, such as correcting originally produced text in Fig 4 into modified text in Fig 5) corresponding to the element information to be changed .. (Fig 3 [0051] teaches elements that generate the initial report text sentences and [0054-0055] teach additional keywords added by the operator that change the subsequent versions of the report)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the embodiment of Fig 7 with the embodiment of Fig 3-6, in order to produce the combination of features “correct .. only a first sentence among the plurality of sentences”: [0063] discusses selecting one of the candidate sentences as the preferred output report, and further discusses inserting the selected candidate text into the selection region as shown in Fig 4. It would be obvious to combine the two functionalities – select a generated text candidate according to embodiment of Fig 7, and then perform corrections to the text according to embodiment of Fig 4-6; hereby only the selected text candidate sentence is changed, not the non-selected sentences. The motivation to do so would have been, to create a unified system that includes the multiple described features.
P:EASE NOTE - the claim does not indicate what happens to the non-corrected sentences. Based on a broadest reasonable reading, they may or may not be included in the revised diagnostic report.
As for claims 12-13, please see discussion of analogous claim 1 above.
As for claim 2, Nakamura teaches
classify the plurality of sentences into the first sentence and a second sentence ([0063] selecting among candidate sentences can be called “classifying”) that does not correspond to the element information to be changed ([0054] the additional keywords supplied by the operator are reasonably understood as “elements to be changed” while the initial elements in Fig 3 are “elements not to be changed”; the initially generated sentence corresponds to the initial elements of Fig 3); and
correct only the first sentence among the first sentence and the second sentence based on the changed element information ([0054] correction proceeds based on the newly-introduced keywords by the operator)
As for claim 3, Nakamura teaches
the element information is information indicating at least one of a name, a property, a measured value, a position, or an estimated disease name related to a region of interest included in a medical image, or an imaging method, an imaging condition, or an imaging date and time related to imaging of the medical image ([0051] includes medical terms such as “right lung”, i.e. name [of an anatomical part], “25x21” is a measured value; likewise [0054] includes “lung cancer”, i.e. an estimated disease name)
As for claim 4, Nakamura teaches
the region of interest is at least one of a region of a structure included in the medical image or a region of an abnormal shadow included in the medical image (Figs 4,5 and 7, el 44)
As for claim 5, Nakamura teaches
to perform control to display the plurality of sentences on a display device (Fig 7 [0062])
As for claim 6, Nakamura teaches
perform control to display the plurality of sentences on the display device by grouping the plurality of sentences based on the element information to which the sentences correspond (NOTE the claim does not specify how the groupings are generated; Fig 7 teaches two groups of sentences, block 42 and block 45; they are all generated based on the “element information”)
As for claim 7, Nakamura teaches
perform control to display the corrected first sentence in an emphasized manner on the display device (Fig 5 as previously discussed; the claim is silent regarding what “emphasized manner” specifically requires)
As for claim 8, Nakamura teaches
in a case of receiving a change in the element information, perform control to display the first sentence before correction in an emphasized manner on the display device (Fig 4 displays the sentence before correction; NOTE the claim does not require before-correct and after-correction version to be displayed simultaneously)
As for claim 9, Nakamura teaches
acquire a medical image ([0032] request image from image server); and
generate the element information based on the acquired medical image ([0048-0050] analysis of image and result keywords/text)
As for claim 10, Nakamura teaches
an input unit, ([0047] operator input)
wherein the processor is configured to
generate the element information based on information input via the input unit ([0055] generate keywords based on operator input)
As for claim 11, Nakamura teaches
acquire the element information from an external device ([0047] operator input unit can be called “external device”)
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARK ROZ whose telephone number is (571)270-3382. The examiner can normally be reached on 9AM-5PM M-F.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chan Park can be reached on (571)272-7409. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/MARK ROZ/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2669
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