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
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
ADAMSON et al. (US 20220161062 A1).
Regarding claims 1 and 11, ADAMSON discloses an apparatus to facilitate optimizing a radiation treatment plan and method of using (IMRT and VMAT optimization; [0003]), comprising:
providing a control circuit (control mechanism 614 and operator workstations 601) configured to:
identify at least one field geometry parameter value (radiotherapy treatment machine parameters extraction including multi-leaf collimator (MLC) parameters, gantry angle, gravity vector, etc.; [0057]);
determine dosimetric robustness for the at least one field geometry parameter value to produce a robustness assessment (differences between calculated and actual dose due to limitations of beam model are quantified using robustness analysis, [0097, 0098]);
optimize the radiation treatment plan using the at least one field geometry parameter value when the robustness assessment is satisfactory ([0010]).
ADAMSON discloses a step of optimizing geometry parameters for a treatment plan, wherein the optimizing step comprises determining whether a geometric robustness assessment is satisfactory (robustness of machine parameter prediction model validation; [0051]), but does not specify the step of validating a robustness assessment for the at least one field dosimetric robustness is satisfactory. However, the use of known technique (validation of a robustness analysis) to improve similar devices and methods (dosimetric robustness assessment) in the same way (improved validation of parameters when introducing perturbations to a process) would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing. See MPEP 2143 and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 415-421, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1395-97 (2007).
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Fig 5 of ADAMSON shows the radiotherapy system having a dosimetric robustness optimization
Regarding claims 2 and 12, ADAMSON fails to specifically disclose wherein identifying the at least one field geometry parameter value comprises at least one of: accessing a default field geometry parameter value; receiving user input specifying the field geometry parameter value (A virtual pre-treatment patient-specific QA strategy may be used to determine parameters, such as radiotherapy treatment machine parameters at delivery of radiotherapy to a subject. Discrepancies in machine parameters that occur at treatment delivery for a new treatment plan may be determined or predicted using the trajectory files acquired from prior treatments or from previous subject; [0029]).
Regarding claims 3 and 13, ADAMSON discloses wherein determining dosimetric robustness for the at least one field geometry parameter value to produce the robustness assessment comprises optimizing radiation treatment plans at a plurality of field geometry parameter values that are closely proximal to, but not equal to, the at least one field geometry parameter value (this plan robustness analysis may consist of a dosimetric analysis after re-calculating the dose using various beam models in which random perturbations have been introduced in the beam model parameters to account for the expected uncertainties in these values; [0097-0098]).
Regarding claims 4, 5, 6, 14, 15, and 16, ADAMSON discloses the plurality of field geometry parameter values (parameters including gantry angle, acceleration and velocity, as well as dose rate, control point number and a variety of other factors that operate on the radiotherapy treatment plan at different points along an imaging and radiotherapy imaging/treatment; [0066]). Because for any given therapy/imaging multiple FOV angles are incorporated it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill at the time of filing to select parameter values that are closely proximal to, but not equal to, the at least one field geometry parameter value comprise at least two field geometry parameter values that are on opposing sides of the at least one field geometry parameter value.
Regarding claims 7 and 17, ADAMSON discloses wherein the at least one field geometry parameter value comprises at least one of: a starting point gantry angle of a volumetric modulated arc therapy field; a stopping point gantry angle of a volumetric modulated arc therapy field; an avoidance sector start angle in a volumetric modulated arc therapy radiation treatment plan; an avoidance sector stop angle in a volumetric modulated arc therapy radiation treatment plan; a gantry angle of an intensity modulated radiation therapy field; a collimator angle; a patient support surface angle; a patient restraint angle (gantry angle, collimator (MLC) positioning for VMAT or IMRT, [0003, 0066]).
Regarding claims 8, 9, 18 and 19, ADAMSON discloses that plan robustness analysis may consist of a dosimetric analysis after introducing random perturbations to the treatment plan based on the expected uncertainty and reproducibility of these values ([0098]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to perform an optimizing of the radiation treatment plan using a field geometry parameter value that is modified from the at least one field geometry parameter value when the robustness assessment is partially, but not wholly, satisfactory, since ADAMSON describes the robustness assessment as an optimization process for improving dosimetric robustness to perturbation of treatment plan parameters. The use of known technique (modifying a geometry parameter based on a robustness analysis) to improve similar devices and methods (dosimetric robustness assessment) in the same way (improved validation of parameters when introducing perturbations to a process) would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing. It further would have bene obvious to select a parameter value within a perturbation range of the dosimetric robustness analysis per [0097-0098].
Regarding claims 10 and 20, ADAMSON discloses a plan robustness analysis consisting of a dosimetric analysis after re-calculating the dose using various beam models in which random perturbations have been introduced in the beam model parameters to account for the expected uncertainties in these values. That is a plurality of beam model parameters are selected and optimized using the disclosed technique ([0097-0098]).
Related Prior Art of Record
WEISHENG (US 20230372736 A1) discloses systems and methods for evaluating and presenting robustness of a radiotherapy treatment plan for use in radiotherapy. The system includes a processor to generate, in a radiation simulation in accordance with the treatment plan under evaluation, dose distributions at an anatomical structure under a nominal condition and one or more artificially imposed uncertainty conditions, determine a dose distribution characteristic for the anatomical structure using the received dose distributions, and generate a robustness indicator of the treatment plan. The dose distributions may be determined at a target structure and one or more structures at risk, and presented graphically in a three-dimensional dose-volume-structure space. An output circuit can output the dose distribution characteristic or the robustness indicator to a user or a treatment planning system.
Conclusion
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CASEY BRYANT
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2884
/CASEY BRYANT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2884
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