Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
2. The United States Patent & Trademark Office appreciates the application that is by the
inventor/assignee. The United States Patent & Trademark Office reviewed the following
application and has made the following comments below.
Priority
3. Applicant claims the benefit of US Provisional Application No. 63/467452, filed 5/18/2023. Claims 1-21 have been afforded the benefit of this filing date.
Information Disclosure Statement
4. The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 4/12/2024. The submission is in
compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure
statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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, 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or
nonobviousness.
6. Claims 1-11, 13, and 15-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tran et al. ((US Patent Pub. No. 20230089026 A1, hereafter referred to as Tran) in view of Hu et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 20100246981 A1, hereafter referred to as Hu) in further view of Westin et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 20220116364 A1, hereafter referred to Westin).
7. Regarding Claim 1, Tran teaches a method comprising: receiving radiograph data (paragraph 210 and 235, Tran teaches the system comprising a radiology image analysis server, RIAS, which receives anatomical image data, where the anatomical image is a two-dimensional image of a body portion of a subject, obtained using anatomical imaging means such as an x-ray machine, MRI machine, and CT scanner.) that has been at least partially processed locally at a computer coupled with a computed tomography scanner (paragraph 210, Tran teaches the anatomical image data that is received by the RIAS, being transmitted from a source of anatomical image data that is transmitted from a source of anatomical image data such as where the data is captured and initially stored at a radiological clinic or its data center for transmission, which may include processing, controlling, or managing an integration layer of the data, in bulk batches prior to a user having to provide their decision/clinical report on a study.), wherein the radiograph data is for a physical object that has been scanned by the computed tomography scanner (paragraph 210 and 235, Tran teaches that the anatomical image data is obtained using an anatomical imaging means such as a CT scanner to obtain scans of a body portion of a subject such as a chest, abdomen, breast, limb, joint and/or portion of a limb such as a shoulder, hip, wrist, and elbow, where these body portions are physical. The Examiner interprets the body portions of a subject as physical objects.); generating a three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object from the radiograph data (paragraph 228-231, Tran teaches that a DICOM instance, may represent a single x-ray view, or a single frame of a stack of images in a computerized tomography CT series, which is an example of generating a three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object. The Examiner interprets the DICOM instance representing a single frame of a stack of images in a CT series as a generated three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object from the radiograph data.); breaking the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object into chunks of data (paragraph 457, Tran teaches displaying findings from the scan data to be broken up into sublists of findings, such as a first sublist and a second sublist, associated with one or more Chest X-ray, CXR, images, as well as indications of one or more features such as metadata in the form of DICOM identifiers. The Examiner interprets the separation of findings such as DICOM identifiers into a first and second sublist, with one of priority findings as breaking the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object into chunks of data.)
selected to match an expected access pattern for data in the three-dimensional reconstruction
[AltContent: arrow][AltContent: arrow][AltContent: arrow](Item 815, 816, and 817 in Fig. 8D-8F and paragraph 457-460, Tran teaches separated segmentation data associated to sublist findings found on CT images being generated, where in the viewer component of a corresponding CXR image, a selected finding is detected and a segmentation map indicates the areas of the image in which the finding has been detected. The Examiner interprets the identification and matching of segmentation data and sublist findings to the areas of the images as selecting to match an expected access pattern for data int the three-dimensional reconstruction.);
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and in response to a request to access the three-dimensional reconstruction in a specified view (paragraph 532-533, Tran teaches the retrieval of the compressed image/segmentation data corresponding to the adjacent radiological findings in response to progressively expand the retrieval to correspond with the transmission queue, which is re-adjustable for the determination of the active position, radiological finding, and enhancement of the user’s interaction with the viewer component.), wherein the compressed chunks are selected for the proper subset based on the specified view (Fig. 8C and paragraph 533, Tran teaches a user interface that detects the position of the mouse cursor on a specific radiological finding and retrieves the compressed image/segmentation data corresponding to the adjacent radiological findings, including various angle views.).
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Tran does not teach compressing the chunks of data to form compressed chunks, storing the compressed chunks on one or more computers communicatively coupled with a computer network with which the computer coupled with the computer tomography scanner is communicatively coupled, producing, on the one or more computers, a compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object from a proper subset of the compressed chunks, and sending the compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object over the computer network to a target computer wherein the target computer is the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner or a different computer communicatively coupled with the computer network.
Hu is in the same field of art of obtaining and transferring medical image data for analysis. Further, Hu teaches compressing the chunks of data to form compressed chunks (Fig. 12 and paragraph 48-49, 90, 95, Hu teaches the optimization of the image transfer occurring by compressing parts of the image file to be transferred including compressing the resized image data, modified header, original image data, original header, or some combination of the header and image data to achieve a more efficient transfer of the image, where different levels of optimization maybe be achieved separately or in combinations. The Examiner interprets the compression of resized image data, modified header, original image data, or some combination of the header and image data using different levels of compression as comprising chunks of data to form compressed chunks.),
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producing, on the one or more computers, a compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object from a proper subset of the compressed chunks (paragraph 40, 57, 68, 90, 98-99, Hu teaches the parsing and viewing of image data, generation of image compression, image downsampling, and the combining of the two processes to realize even further image optimization gains to reduce bandwidth requirements and lower latency when compared to transferring the original image that is not downsampled or compressed from the PACS to the client device.), and sending the compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object over the computer network to a target computer (Fig. 1-2 and paragraph 38-54. Hu teaches medical imaging devices being configured to operate using a single file format and network protocol standard, including when devices generate images of physical objects to send to PACS, the devices format the images according to the DICOM file format before transmitting the images to the MedServer, where formatting includes generating resized images for a set of different image settings, each image with reduced data, during preprocessing or on-demand processing.),
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wherein the target computer is the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner or a different computer communicatively coupled with the computer network (paragraph 52, 54-57, 110, and 115, Hu teaches the image optimization module for efficiently transferring images to include interfacing between image acquisition devices, client devices, and the back-end components of the Hospital Information System, HIS, along with the computer system being coupled to a network through a network adapter so the computer can be a part of a network of computers such as a local area network LAN, wide area network WAN, intranet, or network of network, for instance the internet.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Tran by incorporating
the computer network compression and sending method used to transmit DICOM file formatted images to the PACS and MedServer that is taught by Hu to make an invention that can efficiently transfer DICOM images to image acquisition and receiving devices regardless of file type formats of the receiving devices; thus one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to combine the references since there is a need for improvements in patient data management in a way that allows health care providers to free themselves from data entry and data acquisition tasks that can consume time better allocated to providing care (paragraph 2, Hu).
Tran in view of Hu does not teach storing the compressed chunks on one or more computers communicatively coupled with a computer network with which the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner is communicatively coupled.
Westin is in the same field of art of obtaining and transferring medical image data for analysis. Further, Westin teaches storing the compressed chunks on one or more computers communicatively coupled with a computer network (paragraph 14, 16, 22, 72-73, 95, Westin teaches automated conversion and delivery of medical images which comprises of storing a plurality of medical images, meta data associated with medical images, converted medical images, using a plurality of standardized format specifications such as pixel dimensions of 640 by 480 and data size of 300 KB.) with which the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner is communicatively coupled (paragraphs 112-113, Westin teaches a peripheral device attached with a medical imaging device such as a CT scanner or X-Ray scanner, using transmission approaches such as WIFI or a cellular network without hardware connections, for the encryption and conversion of a medical image into a secure and standardized image file format as well as the communication of the encrypted and/or converted image to a secure server on a remote network. The Examiner interprets this as the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner being communicatively coupled.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Tran and Hu by incorporating the method of storing the converted medical images and associated data based on standardized format specifications that is taught by Westin to make an invention that can transfer converted medical image files such as DICOM files while ensuring security and compatibility; thus one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to combine the references since there is a need from small clinics, doctors’ offices, and dentists’ offices to convert, deliver, and receive medical images economically and timely due to a lack of technical support-staff or finances to run a full PACS for image archiving and delivery to remote expert doctors for second opinions and consultations for improvements in patient data management in a way that allows health care providers to free themselves from data entry and data acquisition tasks that can consume time better allocated to providing care (paragraph 8-10, Westin).
Thus, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to a person having ordinary
skill in the art before the effective filing date.
8. In regards to Claim 2, Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin teaches wherein each of the generating, the breaking and the compressing are done locally at the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner (paragraph 210, 235, 228-231, 457, 519, and 527, Tran teaches generating, breaking, compressing, and transmitting anatomical image data obtained using a CT scanner from a source of anatomical image data such that the data is captured and initially locally stored at a radiological clinic or its data center as well as stored on a local cache.), and the method comprises: sending the compressed chunks from the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner to the one or more computers through the computer network (paragraph 519, 523-526, Tran teaches segmentation data that was compressed, the segmentation maps being sent along with 3 chest x-ray images, CXR images, to the user/workstation over the internet, where the internet is an example of a computer network.).
9. In regards to Claim 3, Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin teaches wherein each of the generating, the breaking and the compressing are done at the one or more computers (paragraph 519, Tran teaches a workstation that displays the user interface, stores the compressed data, images and segmentation maps in the background, on a local cache.), and the method comprises: sending the radiograph data from the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner to the one or more computers through the computer network (Fig. 1-2, paragraph 35, 38-40, 44-45, Hu teaches sending full image data to the PACS for display on multiple different receiving devices, such as a pocket PC, smartphone, cellular telephone, or personal digital assistants, PDA, including devices that are commonly used by healthcare professional that are not DICOM compliant).
10. In regards to Claim 4, Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin teaches compressing the radiograph data to form compressed radiograph data locally at the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner (Fig. 2, paragraph 15 and 49, Hu teaches the compression of the DICOM image data before it is transferred, where the compression includes resizing the image data, modified header, original image data, original header or some combination of the header and image data to achieve a more efficient transfer of the image.); and
sending the compressed radiograph data from the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner to the one or more computers through the computer network (Fig. 1-2 and paragraph 44-49, Hu teaches the sending of the image data, including the compressed image data to the PACS and several devices through the PACS.).
11. In regards to Claim 5, Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin teaches obtaining bandwidth information for a network connection between the computer network and the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner (paragraph 87-90, Hu teaches less bandwidth needed to transfer the information of the DICOM images using the PACS system, which is connected to the computer connected to the full DICOM image data.); determining that the bandwidth information satisfies a threshold (paragraph 90 and 98, Hu teaches that the image optimization technique to compress the image data such that less data is transferred from the image optimization module to the client to realize even further optimization gains reduces bandwidth requirements and lower latency when compared to the original image from the PACS system, which is an example of ensuring minimal bandwidth for the lower latent information transfer.); and in response to determining that the bandwidth information satisfies the threshold, compressing the radiograph data using a lossless compression technique (paragraph 98-99, Hu teaches compression to allow for the images to be transferred to the client device faster at a cost of having to decompress the image locally on the client device, where the process compresses the image before storing the resized and compressed image obtained using various levels of PNG compression and Z-Lib compression, examples of lossless compression.).
12. In regards to Claim 6, Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin teaches obtaining bandwidth information for a network connection between the computer network and the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner (paragraph 87-90, Hu teaches less bandwidth needed to transfer the information of the DICOM images using the PACS system, which is connected to the computer connected to the full DICOM image data.); determining that the bandwidth information does not satisfy a threshold (paragraph 46, Hu teaches how client devices have different image display settings and having a higher display resolution than a smartphone or personal digital assistant does not allow some pixel information to be passed to the client, causing the image optimization module to pass the optimized image instead of the original image to the client device, where the optimized image contains less pixel data than the original image.); and in response to determining that the bandwidth information does not satisfy the threshold, compressing the radiograph data using a lossy compression technique (paragraph 98-99, Hu teaches compression to allow for the images to be transferred to the client device faster at a cost of having to decompress the image locally on the client device, where the process compresses the image before storing the resized and compressed image obtained using various levels of JPEG compression and Wavelet compression, examples of lossy compression.).
13. In regards to Claim 7, Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin teaches wherein producing the compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object from the proper subset of the compressed chunks comprises: decompressing the proper subset of the compressed chunks to form a subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object (Fig. 8B and paragraph 533, Tran teaches a user interface that detects the position of the mouse cursor on a specific radiological finding and retrieves the compressed image/segmentation data corresponding to the adjacent radiological findings.); downsampling the subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object to form a downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object at a target resolution (Fig. 8B and paragraph 533, Tran teaches a user interface that detects the position of the mouse cursor on a specific radiological finding and retrieves the compressed image/segmentation data corresponding to the adjacent radiological findings.), wherein the target resolution is a lower resolution than a resolution of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object (paragraph 42-43 and 45-48. Hu teaches the target resolution that depends on the resolution of client devices such that 176x144 pixels of a PDA, will have a lower resolution than the data of the image optimization module, 1280x960 pixels.); and compressing the downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object to form the compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object (Fig. 8B and paragraph 533, Tran teaches a user interface that detects the position of the mouse cursor on a specific radiological finding and retrieves the compressed image/segmentation data corresponding to the adjacent radiological findings.).
14. In regards to Claim 8, Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin teaches wherein downsampling the subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object comprises: obtaining configuration data of at least one of the computer network, the target computer, and user preference (paragraph 533, Tran teaches creating a transmission queue that includes logic that predicts the next likely radiological findings that will draw the attention of the user such as radiological findings and their segmentation maps being ordered at the start of the transmission queue and retrieved first with the less important ones following.); determining the target resolution based on the configuration data (paragraph 533-536, Tran teaches function described using code to pre-fetch segmentation maps being used to depict a loop through image URLs that a cloud imaging processing service passes to the interactive viewer component to enable the interactive viewer component); and downsampling the subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object to form the downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object at the target resolution (Fig. 8B and paragraph 533, Tran teaches a user interface that detects the position of the mouse cursor on a specific radiological finding and retrieves the compressed image/segmentation data corresponding to the adjacent radiological findings.).
15. In regards to Claim 9, Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin teaches wherein downsampling the subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object comprises: downsampling the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object at a plurality of resolutions to form downsampled three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object at the plurality of resolutions (paragraph 42-47, Hu teaches the performance of the image optimization and efficient image transfer to include resizing the image data according to image display settings of a client display device, specifically by down sampling the image to the image setting of the device, to generate multiple different resized images such as for resolutions 1280x960 pixels and 176x144 pixels.); obtaining configuration data of at least one of the computer network, the target computer, and user preference (paragraph 42-48, Hu teaches the image optimization depending on the resolution of the display of the target devices, where the device is a device of the client’s choice and the resolution of the display of the target device is an example of the configuration data.); determining the target resolution based on the configuration data (paragraph 42-48, Hu teaches determining the target resolution of the optimized image depends on the resolution of the display of the target devices, which is an example of the configuration data.); and determining, from the downsampled three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object at the plurality of resolutions, the downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object at the target resolution (paragraph 42-43 and 46, Hu teaches downsampling the transferred X-ray CT image data to depend on the resolution of the display of the target client devices.).
16. In regards to Claim 10, Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin teaches receiving a second request to access the radiograph data in a second specified view (paragraph 29-30, 396, 435-439, Tran teaches a request sent to the integration layer to notify the microservice that a study of the radiograph data is finished and all related data required to process the radiograph data such as CXR images is returned to the user/customer, this includes the at least two different viewing plane orientations of the body portion of the subject that may correspond to non-parallel viewing planes of the subject such as lateral and frontal viewing planes.); selecting a proper subset of the radiograph data based on the second specified view (paragraph 24, 131-133, 138, Tran teaches the selection of a subset of the dataset defined as the testing dataset based on correlation between one or more pairs of the plurality of findings in ways to navigate anatomical images in an efficient manner.); downsampling the proper subset of the radiograph data to form a downsampled subset of the radiograph data (Fig. 8B and paragraph 533, Tran teaches a user interface that detects the position of the mouse cursor on a specific radiological finding and retrieves the compressed image/segmentation data corresponding to the adjacent radiological findings.); and sending the downsampled subset of the radiograph data over the computer network to the target computer (paragraph 401-415, Tran teaches sending the subset data that has been prepared for transmission, including downsampling, downstream into a secure blob storage such as an S3 bucket in AWS for a cloud deployment.).
17. In regards to Claim 11, Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin teaches wherein the specified view comprises a three-dimensional region of interest (paragraph 520-525, Tran teaches findings associated with segmentation maps defined as regions of interest that represent three-dimensional volumes in a CT image that are clinically significant where the user interface provides a list of findings ordered by priority.).
18. Regarding Claim 18, Tran teaches a system comprising: a data processing apparatus including at least one hardware processor (paragraph 144-146 and 186-189. Tran teaches an apparatus that includes receiving, by a processor, the results of a step of analyzing one or more anatomical images of a subject, as well as communicating by the processor, the result of the analyzing step to a user by sending to a user device at least the segmentation map and the respective anatomical image as separate image files.); and a non-transitory computer-readable medium encoding instructions configured to cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising (paragraph 186-189, Tran teaches a non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising the steps of the methods disclosed.): receiving radiograph data (paragraph 210 and 235, Tran teaches the system comprising a radiology image analysis server, RIAS, which receives anatomical image data, where the anatomical image is a two-dimensional image of a body portion of a subject, obtained using anatomical imaging means such as an x-ray machine, MRI machine, and CT scanner.) that has been at least partially processed locally at a computer coupled with a computed tomography scanner (paragraph 210, Tran teaches the anatomical image data that is received by the RIAS, being transmitted from a source of anatomical image data that is transmitted from a source of anatomical image data such as where the data is captured and initially stored at a radiological clinic or its data center for transmission, which may include processing, controlling, or managing an integration layer of the data, in bulk batches prior to a user having to provide their decision/clinical report on a study.), wherein the radiograph data is for a physical object that has been scanned by the computed tomography scanner (paragraph 210 and 235, Tran teaches that the anatomical image data is obtained using an anatomical imaging means such as a CT scanner to obtain scans of a body portion of a subject such as a chest, abdomen, breast, limb, joint and/or portion of a limb such as a shoulder, hip, wrist, and elbow, where these body portions are physical. The Examiner interprets the body portions of a subject as physical objects.);
generating a three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object from the radiograph data (paragraph 228-231, Tran teaches that a DICOM instance, may represent a single x-ray view, or a single frame of a stack of images in a computerized tomography CT series, which is an example of generating a three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object.);
breaking the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object into chunks of data (paragraph 457, Tran teaches displaying findings from the scan data to be broken up into sublists of findings, such as a first sublist and a second sublist, associated with one or more Chest X-ray, CXR, images, as well as indications of one or more features such as metadata in the form of DICOM identifiers. The Examiner interprets the separation of findings such as DICOM identifiers into a first and second sublist, with one of priority findings as breaking the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object into chunks of data.) selected to match an expected access pattern for data in the three-dimensional reconstruction (item 815, 816, and 817 in Fig. 8D-8F and paragraph 457-460, Tran teaches separated segmentation data associated to sublist findings found on CT images being generated, where in the viewer component of a corresponding CXR image, a selected finding is detected and a segmentation map indicates the areas of the image in which the finding has been detected. The Examiner interprets the identification and matching of segmentation data and sublist findings to the areas of the images as selecting to match an expected access pattern for data int the three-dimensional reconstruction.) and in response to a request to access the three-dimensional reconstruction in a specified view (paragraph 532-533, Tran teaches the retrieval of the compressed image/segmentation data corresponding to the adjacent radiological findings in response to progressively expand the retrieval to correspond with the transmission queue, which is re-adjustable for the determination of the active position, radiological finding, and enhancement of the user’s interaction with the viewer component.), wherein the compressed chunks are selected for the proper subset based on the specified view (Fig. 8C and paragraph 533, Tran teaches a user interface that detects the position of the mouse cursor on a specific radiological finding and retrieves the compressed image/segmentation data corresponding to the adjacent radiological findings, including various angle views.).
Tran does not teach compressing the chunks of data to form compressed chunks, storing the compressed chunks on one or more computers communicatively coupled with a computer network with which the computer coupled with the computer tomography scanner is communicatively coupled; producing, on the one or more computer, a compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object from a proper subset of the compressed chunks, and sending the compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object over the computer network to a target computer, wherein the target computer is the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner or a different computer communicatively coupled with the computer network.
Hu is in the same field of art of obtaining and transferring medical image data for analysis. Further, Hu teaches compressing the chunks of data to form compressed chunks (Fig. 12 and paragraph 48-49, 90, 95, Hu teaches the optimization of the image transfer occurring by compressing parts of the image file to be transferred including compressing the resized image data, modified header, original image data, original header, or some combination of the header and image data to achieve a more efficient transfer of the image, where different levels of optimization maybe be achieved separately or in combinations. The Examiner interprets the compression of resized image data, modified header, original image data, or some combination of the header and image data using different levels of compression as comprising chunks of data to form compressed chunks.), producing, on the one or more computers, a compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object from a proper subset of the compressed chunks (paragraph 40, 57, 68, 90, 98-99, Hu teaches the parsing and viewing of image data, generation of image compression, image downsampling, and the combining of the two processes to realize even further image optimization gains to reduce bandwidth requirements and lower latency when compared to transferring the original image that is not downsampled or compressed from the PACS to the client device), and sending the compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object over the computer network to a target computer (Fig. 1-2 and paragraph 38-54. Hu teaches medical imaging devices being configured to operate using a single file format and network protocol standard, including when devices generate images of physical objects to send to PACS, the devices format the images according to the DICOM file format before transmitting the images to the MedServer, where formatting includes generating resized images for a set of different image settings, each image with reduced data, during preprocessing or on-demand processing.), wherein the target computer is the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner or a different computer communicatively coupled with the computer network (Fig. 15, paragraph 52, and 54-57, 110, and 115, Hu teaches the image optimization module for efficiently transferrin images to include interfacing between image acquisition devices, client devices, and the back-end components of the Hospital Information System, HIS, along with the computer system being coupled to a network through a network adapter so the computer can be a part of a network of computers such as a local area network LAN, wide area network WAN, intranet, or network of network, for instance the internet.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Tran by incorporating
the computer network sending system used to transmit DICOM file formatted images to the PACS and MedServer that is taught by Hu to make an invention that can efficiently transfer DICOM images to image acquisition and receiving devices regardless of file type formats of the receiving devices; thus one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to combine the references since there is a need for improvements in patient data management in a way that allows health care providers to free themselves from data entry and data acquisition tasks that can consume time better allocated to providing care (paragraph 2, Hu).
Tran in view of Hu does not teach storing the compressed chunks on one or more computers communicatively coupled with a computer network with which the computer coupled with the computer tomography scanner is communicatively coupled.
Westin is in the same field of art of obtaining and transferring medical image data for analysis. Further, Westin teaches storing the compressed chunks on one or more computers communicatively coupled with a computer network (paragraph 14, 16, 22, 72-73, 95, Westin teaches automated conversion and delivery of medical images which comprises of storing a plurality of medical images, meta data associated with medical images, converted medical images, using a plurality of standardized format specifications such as pixel dimensions of 640 by 480 and data size of 300 KB.) with which the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner is communicatively coupled (paragraphs 112-113, Westin teaches a peripheral device attached with a medical imaging device such as a CT scanner or X-Ray scanner, using transmission approaches such as WIFI or a cellular network without hardware connections, for the encryption and conversion of a medical image into a secure and standardized image file format as well as the communication of the encrypted and/or converted image to a secure server on a remote network. The Examiner interprets this as the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner being communicatively coupled.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Tran and Hu by incorporating the system of storing the converted medical images and associated data based on standardized format specifications that is taught by Westin to make an invention that can transfer converted medical image files while ensuring security and compatibility; thus one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to combine the references since there is a need from small clinics, doctors’ offices, and dentists’ offices to convert, deliver, and receive medical images economically and timely due to a lack of technical support-staff or finances to run a full PACS for image archiving and delivery to remote expert doctors for second opinions and consultations for improvements in patient data management in a way that allows health care providers to free themselves from data entry and data acquisition tasks that can consume time better allocated to providing care (paragraph 8-10, Westin).
Thus, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to a person having ordinary
skill in the art before the effective filing date.
19. In regards to Claim 19, Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin teaches wherein the operations comprise: compressing the radiograph data to form compressed radiograph data locally at the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner (Fig. 2, paragraph 15 and 49, Hu teaches the compression of the DICOM image data before it is transferred, where the compression includes resizing the image data, modified header, original image data, original header or some combination of the header and image data to achieve a more efficient transfer of the image.); and sending the compressed radiograph data from the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner to the one or more computers through the computer network (Fig. 1-2 and paragraph 44-49, Hu teaches the sending of the image data, including the compressed image data to the PACS and several devices through the PACS.).
20. Regarding Claim 20, Tran teaches a non-transitory computer-readable medium encoding instructions operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operations (paragraph 186-189, Tran teaches a non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising the steps of the methods disclosed.) comprising:
receiving radiograph data (paragraph 210 and 235, Tran teaches the system comprising a radiology image analysis server, RIAS, which receives anatomical image data, where the anatomical image is a two-dimensional image of a body portion of a subject, obtained using anatomical imaging means such as an x-ray machine, MRI machine, and CT scanner.) that has been at least partially processed locally at a computer coupled with a computed tomography scanner (paragraph 210, Tran teaches the anatomical image data that is received by the RIAS, being transmitted from a source of anatomical image data that is transmitted from a source of anatomical image data such as where the data is captured and initially stored at a radiological clinic or its data center for transmission, which may include processing, controlling, or managing an integration layer of the data, in bulk batches prior to a user having to provide their decision/clinical report on a study.), wherein the radiograph data is for a physical object that has been scanned by the computed tomography scanner (paragraph 210 and 235, Tran teaches that the anatomical image data is obtained using an anatomical imaging means such as a CT scanner to obtain scans of a body portion of a subject such as a chest, abdomen, breast, limb, joint and/or portion of a limb such as a shoulder, hip, wrist, and elbow, where these body portions are physical. The Examiner interprets the body portions of a subject as physical objects.); generating a three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object from the radiograph data (paragraph 228-231, Tran teaches that a DICOM instance, may represent a single x-ray view, or a single frame of a stack of images in a computerized tomography CT series, which is an example of generating a three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object.); breaking the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object into chunks of data (paragraph 457, Tran teaches displaying findings from the scan data to be broken up into sublists of findings, such as a first sublist and a second sublist, associated with one or more Chest X-ray, CXR, images, as well as indications of one or more features such as metadata in the form of DICOM identifiers. The Examiner interprets the separation of findings such as DICOM identifiers into a first and second sublist, with one of priority findings as breaking the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object into chunks of data.) selected to match an expected access pattern for data in the three-dimensional reconstruction (item 815, 816, and 817 in Fig. 8D-8F and paragraph 457-460, Tran teaches separated segmentation data associated to sublist findings found on CT images being generated, where in the viewer component of a corresponding CXR image, a selected finding is detected and a segmentation map indicates the areas of the image in which the finding has been detected. The Examiner interprets the identification and matching of segmentation data and sublist findings to the areas of the images as selecting to match an expected access pattern for data int the three-dimensional reconstruction.) and in response to a request to access the three-dimensional reconstruction in a specified view (paragraph 532-533, Tran teaches the retrieval of the compressed image/segmentation data corresponding to the adjacent radiological findings in response to progressively expand the retrieval to correspond with the transmission queue, which is re-adjustable for the determination of the active position, radiological finding, and enhancement of the user’s interaction with the viewer component.), wherein the compressed chunks are selected for the proper subset based on the specified view (Fig. 8C and paragraph 533, Tran teaches a user interface that detects the position of the mouse cursor on a specific radiological finding and retrieves the compressed image/segmentation data corresponding to the adjacent radiological findings, including various angle views.).
Tran does not teach compressing the chunks of data to form compressed chunks, storing the compressed chunks on one or more computer communicatively coupled with a computer network with which the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner is communicatively coupled, producing, on the one or more computers, a compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object from a proper subset of the compressed chunks, and sending the compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object over the computer network to a target computer, wherein the target computer is the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner or a different computer communicatively coupled with the computer network.
Hu is in the same field of art of obtaining and transferring medical image data for analysis. Further, Hu teaches compressing the chunks of data to form compressed chunks (Fig. 12 and paragraph 48-49, 90, 95, Hu teaches the optimization of the image transfer occurring by compressing parts of the image file to be transferred including compressing the resized image data, modified header, original image data, original header, or some combination of the header and image data to achieve a more efficient transfer of the image, where different levels of optimization maybe be achieved separately or in combinations. The Examiner interprets the compression of resized image data, modified header, original image data, or some combination of the header and image data using different levels of compression as comprising chunks of data to form compressed chunks.), producing, on the one or more computers, a compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object from a proper subset of the compressed chunks (paragraph 40, 57, 68, 90, 98-99, Hu teaches the parsing and viewing of image data, generation of image compression, image downsampling, and the combining of the two processes to realize even further image optimization gains to reduce bandwidth requirements and lower latency when compared to transferring the original image that is not downsampled or compressed from the PACS to the client device.), and sending the compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object over the computer network to a target computer (Fig. 1-2 and paragraph 38-54. Hu teaches medical imaging devices being configured to operate using a single file format and network protocol standard, including when devices generate images of physical objects to send to PACS, the devices format the images according to the DICOM file format before transmitting the images to the MedServer, where formatting includes generating resized images for a set of different image settings, each image with reduced data, during preprocessing or on-demand processing.), wherein the target computer is the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner or a different computer communicatively coupled with the computer network (Fig. 15, paragraph 52, and 54-57, 110, and 115, Hu teaches the image optimization module for efficiently transferrin images to include interfacing between image acquisition devices, client devices, and the back-end components of the Hospital Information System, HIS, along with the computer system being coupled to a network through a network adapter so the computer can be a part of a network of computers such as a local area network LAN, wide area network WAN, intranet, or network of network, for instance the internet.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Tran by incorporating
the non-transitory computer readable storage medium that encodes instructions for sending DICOM file formatted images to the PACS and MedServer that is taught by Hu to make an invention that can efficiently transfer DICOM images to image acquisition and receiving devices regardless of file type formats of the receiving devices; thus one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to combine the references since there is a need for improvements in patient data management in a way that allows health care providers to free themselves from data entry and data acquisition tasks that can consume time better allocated to providing care (paragraph 2, Hu).
Tran in view of Hu does not teach storing the compressed chunks on one or more computers communicatively coupled with a computer network (paragraph 14, 16, 22, 72-73, 95, Westin teaches automated conversion and delivery of medical images which comprises of storing a plurality of medical images, meta data associated with medical images, converted medical images, using a plurality of standardized format specifications such as pixel dimensions of 640 by 480 and data size of 300 KB.) with which the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner is communicatively coupled (paragraphs 112-113, Westin teaches a peripheral device attached with a medical imaging device such as a CT scanner or X-Ray scanner, using transmission approaches such as WIFI or a cellular network without hardware connections, for the encryption and conversion of a medical image into a secure and standardized image file format as well as the communication of the encrypted and/or converted image to a secure server on a remote network. The Examiner interprets this as the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner being communicatively coupled.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Tran and Hu by incorporating the system of storing converted medical images and associated data based using standardized format specifications that is taught by Westin to make an invention that can transfer converted medical image files while ensuring security and compatibility; thus one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to combine the references since there is a need from small clinics, doctors’ offices, and dentists’ offices to convert, deliver, and receive medical images economically and timely due to a lack of technical support-staff or finances to run a full PACS for image archiving and delivery to remote expert doctors for second opinions and consultations for improvements in patient data management in a way that allows health care providers to free themselves from data entry and data acquisition tasks that can consume time better allocated to providing care (paragraph 8-10, Westin).
Thus, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to a person having ordinary
skill in the art before the effective filing date.
21. In regards to Claim 21, Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin teaches wherein producing the compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object from the proper subset of the compressed chunks comprises: decompressing the proper subset of the compressed chunks to form a subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object (Fig. 8B and paragraph 533, Tran teaches a user interface that detects the position of the mouse cursor on a specific radiological finding and retrieves the compressed image/segmentation data corresponding to the adjacent radiological findings.); downsampling the subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object to form a downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object at a target resolution (Fig. 8B and paragraph 533, Tran teaches a user interface that detects the position of the mouse cursor on a specific radiological finding and retrieves the compressed image/segmentation data corresponding to the adjacent radiological findings.), wherein the target resolution is a lower resolution than a resolution of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object (paragraph 42-43 and 45-48, Hu teaches the target resolution that depends on the resolution of client devices such that 176x144 pixels of a PDA, will have a lower resolution than the data of the image optimization module, 1280x960 pixels.); and compressing the downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object to form the compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object (Fig. 8B and paragraph 533, Tran teaches a user interface that detects the position of the mouse cursor on a specific radiological finding and retrieves the compressed image/segmentation data corresponding to the adjacent radiological findings.).
22. Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tran et al. ((US Patent Pub. No. 20230089026 A1, hereafter referred to as Tran) in view of Hu et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 20100246981 A1, hereafter referred to as Hu) in further view of Westin et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 20220116364 A1, hereafter referred to as Westin) furthermore in view of Besenbruch (US Patent Pub. No. 20230154055 A1, hereafter referred to as Besenbruch).
23. Regarding Claim 12, Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin teaches the method of Claim 1 for receiving, reconstructing, and sending radiograph image data of a physical object across computer networks.
Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin does not teach determining, based on one or more factors, whether each of the generating, the breaking and the compressing are done locally at the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner or at the one or more computers.
Kovalan is in the same field of art of obtaining and transferring medical image data for analysis. Further, Kovalan teaches determining, based on one or more factors, whether each of the generating, the breaking and the compressing are done locally at the computer coupled with the computed tomography scanner or at the one or more computers
[AltContent: arrow][AltContent: arrow][AltContent: arrow](Fig. 1 and 4, paragraph 37-38, 41-47, 61-64, Kovalan teaches medical data scans being generated, broken up, and compressed using a Storage and Processing Server, SPS, which is connected via a private network such as a local area network via connections that allow information exchange to be fast. SPS layers consist of serve clusters having one or more computer-readable volume data storage mediums, volume processing service, and web or application serves for application interaction.).
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Therefore it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Tran, Hu, and Westin by incorporating the method of generating, breaking, and compressing data locally using an SPS with a private network that is taught by Kovalan to make an invention that can virtually visualize dataset contained on centralized databases from a remote location transfer; thus one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to combine the references since there is a demand for easy access to medical scans in order for large scans to be interpreted simpler and faster (paragraph 5, Kovalan).
Thus, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to a person having ordinary
skill in the art before the effective filing date.
24. Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tran et al. ((US Patent Pub. No. 20230089026 A1, hereafter referred to as Tran) in view of Hu et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 20100246981 A1, hereafter referred to as Hu) in further view of Westin et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 20220116364 A1, hereafter referred to as Westin) furthermore in view of Besenbruch (US Patent Pub. No. 20230154055 A1, hereafter referred to as Besenbruch).
25. Regarding Claim 14, Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin teaches method of Claim 1 for receiving, reconstructing, and sending radiograph image data of a physical object across computer networks.
Tran in view of Hu in further view of Westin does not teach wherein no dimension of the compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object is greater than 2048 pixels or voxels.
Besenbruch is in the same field of art of obtaining and transferring medical image data for analysis. Further, Besenbruch teaches wherein no dimension of the compressed and downsampled subset of the three-dimensional reconstruction of the physical object is greater than 2048 pixels or voxels (paragraph 1663, Besenbruch teaches the validation image dataset obtained from a computer-implemented method for lossy image or video compression, transmission, decoding, and image reconstruction to consist of 102 mobile and professional photos of varying resolutions ranging from 384 to 2048 pixels per dimension. The Examiner interprets the ranging from 384 to 2048 pixels as not to exceed 2048 pixels.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Tran, Hu, and Westin by incorporating a resolution size limitation of 384 to 2048 pixels that is taught by Besenbruch to make an invention that obtains data for image compression and reconstruction fit within widely accepted resolution sizes; thus one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to combine the references since there is an increasing demand from users of communication networks for images and video content that has high resolution and lower distortion (paragraph 3, Besenbruch).
Thus, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to a person having ordinary
skill in the art before the effective filing date.
Conclusion
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/LOUIS NWUHA/Examiner, Art Unit 2674
/ONEAL R MISTRY/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2674