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 .
Status of Claims
Applicant arguments filled on 02/27/2026 have been found persuasive.
This action replaces the Final Office action mailed out on 12/22/2025.
Claims 1, 5, 11-12, 17, 19, 21 have been previously canceled.
Claims 22-27 have been previously added new.
Claims 2-4, 6-10, 13-16, 18, 20, and 22-27 have been added new and are currently pending.
Detailed Action
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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)(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.
Claim(s) 2-4, 6-10, 13-16, 18, 20, and 22-27 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Flanagan et al. (US 2012/0215559 A1)
As per claim 2, a computer-implemented method comprising:
Flanagan teaches:
receiving a free-form text transcription of a clinical encounter (Para. 19-20);
generating engine annotations based on free-form text transcription by applying a natural language understanding (NLU) engine to the free-form text transcription, the engine annotations including medical codes, identified by the NLU engine, as being associated with the clinical encounter (Para. 73 wherein “, the text narrative may be re-formatted prior to fact extraction to add, remove or correct one or more sentence boundaries within the text narrative. In some embodiments, this may involve altering the punctuation in at least one location within the text narrative”. The information includes medical codes as seen in Para. 102);
receiving user annotations derived manually from the free-form text transcription by one or more human users, the user annotations including at least one medical code, identified by the one or more human users, as being associated with the clinical encounter (Para. 55 wherein “, the text narrative may be re-formatted prior to fact extraction to add, remove or correct one or more sentence boundaries within the text narrative. In some embodiments, this may involve altering the punctuation in at least one location within the text narrative”. See also Para. 59 wherein “In some embodiments, as discussed above, a fact review system may allow a user to add, delete and/or modify (collectively referred to as "change") a clinical fact extracted from a free-form narration of a patient encounter provided by a clinician, resulting in a change to the set of extracted facts”); and
generating training data by merging the engine annotations with the user annotations (Para. 59 and 75); and
training the NLU engine to perform medical coding based on the training data
(Para. 75).
As per claim 3, Flanagan teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein generating the training data by merging the engine annotations with the user annotations comprises:
comparing an order of annotations between the engine annotations and the user annotations (Para. 46 and 73); and
generating information identifying differences in the order (Para. 46).
As per claim 4, Flanagan teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein generating the training data by merging the engine annotations with the user annotations comprises: comparing the engine annotations with the user annotations and removing one or more redundant annotations (Para. 75).
As per claim 6, Flanagan teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the training data includes:
a first engine annotation identified as an error made by the NLU engine from the engine annotations generated (Para. 46 and 73); and
a first user annotation identified as a correction of the error made by the NLU engine (Para. 46 and 73).
As per claim 7, Flanagan teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein generating the engine annotations comprises:
generating one or more engine annotations and one or more engine links based on the free-form text transcription by applying the NLU engine to the free-form text transcription, wherein each of the one or more engine links associates one of the one or more engine annotations with a corresponding portion of the free-form text transcription (Para. 76 and 91).
As per claim 8, Flanagan teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the user annotations include at least one of a rejection of an engine annotation, a replacement of an engine annotation, a replacement of an engine link, or a re-ordering of the engine annotations (Para. 104).
As per claim 26, Flanagan teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the at lest one medical code in the user annotations is excluded from the engine annotations (Para. 73-74 and 105).
As per claim 27, Flanagan teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the training data includes a list of medical codes, associated with the free-form text transcription, that includes the medical codes in the engine annotations and the at least one medical code in the user annotations (105-106).
Claims 9, 10, 1316, 18, 20, and 22-25 recite substantially similar limitations as seen above and hence are rejected for similar rationale as noted above.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to the art rejection above have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection. It is respectfully submitted that the Examiner has applied new passages and citations to the claims at the present time.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAROUN P KANAAN whose telephone number is (571)270-1497. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00-5:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Mamon Obeid can be reached at (571) 270-1813. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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MAROUN P. KANAAN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3687
/MAROUN P KANAAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3687