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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 5 April, 2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
Such claim limitations are: “means for receiving one or more input medical images”, “means for extracting a feature set”, “means for encoding the extracted feature set”, “means for predicting an age”, “means for denoising the encoded feature set”, “means for generating one or more synthetic images”, and “means for outputting the one or more synthetic images” in claim 10; “means for predicting one or more abnormalities” in claim 12; “means for generating an abnormality map” in claim 13; and “means for determining a quantitative measure” in claim 14.
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 § 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 9 and 19 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.
The term “healthy-for-age” in claims 9 and 19 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “healthy-for-age” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Healthy-for-age is a subjective concept that has no bounds in either the claim or the specification. It is not clear to the examiner what a healthy-for-age image of an anatomical object is. Is this an anatomical object that has a predicted age that matches the chronological age of the patient? Is there a threshold for abnormalities that so long as the image is below, it is constituted as “healthy-for-age”? A healthy-for-age image cannot be defined in view of the applicant’s disclosure and therefor is indefinite and the scope of the claim cannot be determined.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1 – 8, 10 – 18, and 20 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The closest prior art Wyles et al (International Patent Publication No. WO202405693 A2, hereinafter “Wyles”) in combination with additional arts Besson et al (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2022/0122250 A1, hereinafter “Besson”) and Li et al (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2024/0065609 A1, hereinafter “Li”) teaches that it was known at the time the application was filed to perform a computer-implemented method comprising receiving 1) one or more input medical images of an anatomical object of a patient and 2) an input age associated with the patient, extracting a feature set from the one or more input medical images, encoding the extracted feature set with noise using a machine learning based noise model, denoising the encoded feature set based on the input age associated with the patient using a machine learning based denoising model, generating one or more synthetic images of the anatomical object of the patient based on the denoised feature set and outputting the one or more synthetic images of the anatomical object of the patient.
However, the prior art, alone or in combination, does not appear to teach or suggest encoding the extracted feature set with noise based on the input age associated with the patient, predicting an age associated with the patient based on the extracted feature set, denoising the encoded feature set based on the input age associated with the patient and the predicted age associated with the patient.
Claims 2 – 7 and 9 depend from independent claim 1.
Claims 11 – 14 depend from independent claim 10.
Claims 16 – 18 and 20 depend from independent claim 15.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Duchesne et al (U.S. Patent No. 11151722 B2) teaches a method of comparing medical images of patients against known values for given subjects or against predetermined scales for diagnostic or prognostic purposes. This method uses a classifier based on local intensity and spatial estimators, for the segmentation mask provided by a non-local means patch-based segmentation in a test image, and estimating for the pixels of interest at least one synthetic value of a quantitative metric using a given value of the quantitative metric assigned to the reference images and the boundaries.
Tseng et al (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2024/0023878) teaches a method of predicting therapeutic effects of a treatment for cognitive impairment for an individual using the individual's predicted age difference (PAD), the method comprising scanning the individual's brain with a scanning device so as to acquire at least one medical brain image at the beginning of the treatment; processing the medical brain image to obtain at least one feature of the image; generating a PAD value of the individual based on the at least one feature of the image; comparing the PAD value with a reference value and predicting the therapeutic effects of the treatment for cognitive impairment using the comparison result of the PAD value and the reference value. This method differs from the claimed invention as it does not teach any form of noisy encoding or denoising based on the age of the patient.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDREW JONES whose telephone number is (703)756-4573. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:00-5:00 EST, off Every Other Friday.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew Bella can be reached at (571) 272-7778. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANDREW B. JONES/Examiner, Art Unit 2667
/MATTHEW C BELLA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2667
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