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 .
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.
DETAILED ACTION
Priority
This application claims priority to US provisional application 63/237,781, 63, 280,224 and a 371 of PCT US2002/041886, and a continuation of 18/686,511.
Claim Note
There appears to be a repeated “at” in claims 1 and 11 such that the claim reads “wherein the one or more images are representative of the one or more cell rafts at at least one of.” It is suggested that applicant delete one of the “at”s.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-2, 4-12, 14-20 are rejected under 35 USC 102 as being anticipated by US 2019/0256817, Gebhart
1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving, using at least one processor, one or more images of one or more cell rafts including one or more cells, wherein the one or more images are representative of the one or more cell rafts at at least one of: a predetermined point in time, during a predetermined period of time, and any combination thereof; (Gebhart ¶35-37 obtaining one or more images of the microwell array using the imaging device; note the predetermined point in time is given little patentable weight as no predetermined time is specified and can be interpreted as the time one decided to take the picture)
extracting, using the at least one processor, one or more features from the one or more images in response to a query, the query identifying one or more search criteria; (Gebhart ¶105 search; see also ¶115)
identifying, using the at least one processor, one or more areas of interest defined by the one or more features extracted from the one or more images; (Gebhart ¶124 raft of interest)
filtering, using the at least one processor, using one or more filters, the one or more areas of interest, and identifying at least one cell data associated with at least one cell in the one or more cells using the filtered one or more areas of interest; and (Gebhart ¶122-124 identifying one cell data)
generating, using the at least one processor, a graphical representation of the identified at least one cell data and presenting the graphical representation on a graphical user interface of at least one computing device. (Gebhart ¶137-138 displays the cell)
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more images are stored in one or more storage locations, wherein the receiving includes querying the one or more storage locations; and retrieving at least one image in the one or more images from the one or more storage locations. (Gebhart ¶15 store in a memory)
4. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the one or more images includes: scanning the one or more cell rafts in a microarray to generate the one or more images. (Gebhart ¶41 scanning rafts)
5. The method of claim 4, further comprising repeating the scanning of the one or more cell rafts; wherein repeating the scanning of the one or more cell rafts includes defining at least one other search criteria for at least one iteration of the scanning of the one or more cell rafts in a microarray. (Gebhart ¶69 and ¶117 repeat scanning using other criteria)
6. The method of claim 5, further comprising defining a plurality of sets of cell data representative of the one or more cell rafts using the one or more images, the plurality of sets of cell data being identified based on the repeated scanning using at least one of: the at least one or more search criteria, the at least one or more another search criteria, and any combination thereof; (Gebhart ¶74 search for cell rafts based on criteria)
applying at least one logical operation to the plurality of sets of cell data; and (Gebhart ¶74 does it meet the criteria)
generating, based on the applying, at least one set of cell data having at least one cell data meeting at least one parameter of the logical operation. (Gebhart ¶74 selects cells with the criteria)
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the logical operation includes at least one of the following: an intersection, a union, a symmetric difference, a difference, and any combination thereof. (Gebhart ¶74 all cells with X criteria; note that a combination of an intersection and union is null and this limitation could be read as no search is needed to be performed)
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined period of time includes at least one of the following: a plurality of times at which at least one image in the one or more images is obtained, a continuous time interval during which at least a portion of the one or more images is obtained, and any combination thereof. (The image is obtained at a point in time, which is a time)
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more filters include at least one of the following: the predetermined point in time, the predetermined period of timeCell raftCell raft, a type of segmentation of the one or more cells, an area of growth of the one or more cells, debris, an aspect ratio of the one or more images, a solidity, a circularity, a fluorescent intensity, an amplitude, a texture, a mean intensity, one or more fiducial areas of interest, one or more fiducial rafts, one or more area of interest counts, a coverage, and any combinations thereof. (Gebhart ¶48 fluorescent filter)
10. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more images include at least one of the following: a brightfield image of the one or more cell rafts including the one or more cells, a blue fluorescence image of the one or more cell rafts including the one or more cells, a green fluorescence image of the one or more cell rafts including the one or more cells, a red fluorescence image of the one or more cell rafts including the one or more cells, a false-colored fluorescence image of the one or more cell rafts including the one or more cells and any combination thereof. (Gebhart ¶137 fluorescence channels)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3 and 13 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The closest prior art includes US 2019/0355119, Hu, which discloses a segmentation process that uses color histogram peaks to perform segmentation, but it does not disclose the particular limitations of generating a histogram count of … colors of pixels along at least one axis … generating one or more lines between the one or more boundaries … as recited in claims 3 and 13.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Ming Shui whose telephone number is (303)297-4247. The examiner can normally be reached on 7-5 Pacific Time, M-Th.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Greg Morse can be reached on 571-272-3838. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Ming Shui/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2663
Prosecution Insights