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 .
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of prior-filed application PRO 63/499478 filed 05/01/2023 under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 05/14/2026 is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed 06/15/2026 has been entered. Claims 1, 3-12, 14-17, and 19-21 remain pending. Claims 2, 13, 18, and 22-64 are cancelled.
In response to the amendments to the Drawings, the objection of record is withdrawn.
In response to the amendments to the Specification, the objection of record is withdrawn.
In response to the amendments to Claim 6, the objection of record is withdrawn.
In response to the amendments to Claims 1, 15, and 16, the rejections of record under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) have been withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 3-12, 14-17, and 19-21 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
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.
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.
Claims 1, 6-12, 14, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Raby et al. (US 2022/0110723 A1) in view of Sun et al. (US 2021/0321968 A1).
Regarding Claim 1, Raby teaches “A method of fusing a cone-beam computed
tomography (CBCT) scan with an intraoral scan” (Raby, [0036] discloses “First imaging device
106 may include a cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) scanner, a magnetic resonance
image (MRI) scanner, or an imaging device configured to produce digital image data that may
penetrate and distinguish between different types of dental anatomy tissues.” Raby, [0040]
discloses “For example, second imaging device 108 may include an intra-oral scanner or
imaging device configured to produce optical impressions of dental anatomy.” Raby, [0043] discloses “FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of an example technique for combining dental anatomy
data from two or more different imaging devices”), “the method comprising:
receiving, in a remote processing agent, a processed CBCT scan file that has been processed by a local processing agent from a patient CBCT scan file by:
removing one or more regions in the patient CBCT scan file corresponding to regions outside of any tooth roots ” (Raby, [0065] discloses “After receiving the volumetric dental data, the technique illustrated in FIG. 7 includes segmenting, by computing device 102, e.g., segmentation module 128, a first subset of the volumetric dental data representative of crowns of teeth of the patient from a second subset of the volumetric dental data representative of roots of the teeth (706)”; where crowns of teeth are regions outside tooth roots) “and/or pre- segmenting the patient CBCT scan file by the remote processing agent to ensure that the processed CBCT scan file can be volumetrically segmented into individual teeth roots based on a scan quality of the CBCT scan” (Raby, [0038] discloses “In some examples, first imaging device 106 may include pre-processing circuitry configured to filter the sub-gingival data. The at least one density threshold may include an upper density limit and a lower density limit of at least one tissue of the dental anatomy”; where keeping only features in a density threshold is pre-segmenting based on a scan quality; where, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, segmenting a scan file may be any method of dividing or separating a scan file, thus using a density threshold segments data into higher and lower density groups; where a density is a scan quality)
fusing a CBCT scan from the processed CBCT scan file with an intraoral scan of crowns
of the patient's teeth to form a final model of the patient's teeth including the roots, wherein
the processed CBCT scan has been volumetrically segmented and the intraoral scan has been
surface segmented” (Raby, [0071] discloses “After transforming the second dental data, the
technique illustrated in FIG. 7 includes generating, by computing device 102, e.g., image
generation module 132, combined dental data by replacing the first subset of the sub-gingival
data indicative of the first spatial orientation of the crowns with the transformed first subset of the superficial dental data indicative of the second spatial orientation of the crowns to
stitch the transformed first subset of the superficial dental data indicative of the second
spatial orientation of the crowns to the second subset of the volumetric dental data
representative of the roots (712).” Raby, [0065] also discloses “By segmenting the first subset
of the volumetric dental data from a second subset of the volumetric dental data, computing
device 102 may define a sub-gingival portion (e.g., roots 316) and a superficial portion of the
volumetric dental data (e.g., crowns 312)”; where superficial dental data is surface
segmented intraoral scan; where sub-gingival data is volumetrically segmented CBCT scan).
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Fig. 1 of Raby
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Fig. 7 of Raby
Raby does not explicitly teach “removing one or more regions in the patient CBCT scan file corresponding to regions outside of any tooth roots to limit a file size of the processed CBCT scan file to less than a maximum file size and/or pre- segmenting the patient CBCT scan file by the remote processing agent to ensure that the processed CBCT scan file can be volumetrically segmented into individual teeth roots based on a scan quality of the CBCT scan and rejecting patient CBCT scan files that cannot be segmented.”
However, in an analogous field of endeavor, Sun teaches “rejecting patient CBCT scan files that cannot be segmented” (Sun, [0041] discloses “X-ray images that do not meet the pre-processing requirements will be rejected for subsequent processing. For example, images that cannot be segmented into bone structure regions or soft tissue regions clearly do not meet the requirements”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention to have modified Raby to incorporate the teachings of Sun by rejecting images for subsequent processing that cannot be segmented. The prior art Raby contained a ‘base’ method upon which the claimed invention can be seen as an ‘improvement.’ Raby teaches a method of pre-processing sub-gingival data by using a density threshold to segment data; the claimed invention recites pre-segmenting a scan file and rejecting scan files that cannot be segmented, which can be seen as an improvement. The prior art contained a known technique that is applicable to the base method. Sun teaches a technique of rejecting images that do not meet the requirement because they cannot be segmented. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would have yielded predictable results and resulted in an improved system. That is, one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that rejecting images based on a segmentation pre-processing requirement would have yielded the predictable results of removing images that are not able to be segmented based on regions, as in Sun, or segmented based on density, as in Raby. It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that image processing techniques applied to the X-ray images of Sun may be applied to the CBCT scans of Raby with predictable results. Additionally, one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to combine the Raby and Sun references in order to improve quality and efficiency: Sun, [0041] discloses “The preprocessing can speed up the execution efficiency of the subsequent steps, so that the X-ray image quality control system can better conform to the real-time requirements.”
Finally, the conjunction “and/or” in Claim 1 includes a case where the claimed method contains only one of the listed method steps. Thus, Claim 1 need only recite one of “removing one or more regions in the patient CBCT scan file corresponding to regions outside of any tooth roots to limit a file size of the processed CBCT scan file to less than a maximum file size” or “pre- segmenting the patient CBCT scan file by the remote processing agent to ensure that the processed CBCT scan file can be volumetrically segmented into individual teeth roots based on a scan quality of the CBCT scan and rejecting patient CBCT scan files that cannot be segmented.” Thus, the combination of Raby and Sun discloses the invention of Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 6, the combination of Raby and Sun teaches “The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the processed CBCT scan file comprises receiving the processed CBCT scan file that has been volumetrically segmented by the local processing agent” (Raby, [0065] also discloses “By segmenting the first subset of the volumetric dental data from a second subset of the volumetric dental data, computing device 102 may define a sub-gingival portion (e.g., roots 316) and a superficial portion of the volumetric dental data (e.g., crowns 312).”)
Regarding Claim 7, the combination of Raby and Sun teaches “The method of claim 1, further comprising volumetrically segmenting the received processed CBCT scan file” (Raby, [0070] discloses “In some examples, transforming (710) may include applying a plurality of linear transforms to data representative of different segments (or portions) of a dental arch, a continuous transform function that varies along a path that describes the arch to data representative of the dental arch, or both.”; where transforming step 710 occurs after segmentation step 706 of first volumetric dental data).
Regarding Claim 8, the combination of Raby and Sun teaches “The method of claim 1, further comprising segmenting the intraoral scan” (Raby, [0040] discloses “For example, second imaging device 108 may include an intra-oral scanner or imaging device configured to produce optical impressions of dental anatomy” and Raby, [0078] discloses “based on the second spatial orientation of the crowns of the superficial dental data, at least one of an arch centroid, one or more arch segment centroids, one or more tooth centroids, one or more crown centroids, one or more dental anatomical landmarks, one or more mesh vertices, one or more mesh triangles (1004).”; where determining an arch segment from superficial dental data is segmenting an intraoral scan).
Regarding Claim 9, the combination of Raby and Sun teaches “The method of claim 1, wherein fusing comprises matching crown regions of the segmented intraoral scan with crown regions of the segmented CBCT scan and replacing the crown regions of the segmented CBCT scans with the crown regions of the segmented intraoral scanner” (Raby, [0048] discloses “For example, generating the combined dental data may include replacing crowns 312 with the transformed corresponding portion of crowns 402 to stitch the transformed crowns 402 to bone 314 and/or roots 316.”)
Regarding Claim 10, the combination of Raby and Sun teaches “The method of claim 1, wherein fusing comprises verifying the fusion based on degree of match between the crown regions of the segmented intraoral scan with crown regions of the segmented CBCT scan” (Raby, [0078] discloses “The technique illustrated in FIG. 11A includes determining, by computing device 102, e.g., transformation module 130, based on the first spatial orientation of the crowns of the volumetric dental data, at least one of an arch centroid, one or more arch segment centroids, one or more tooth centroids, one or more crown centroids, one or more dental anatomical landmarks, one or more mesh vertices, one or more mesh triangles (1002). The technique illustrated in FIG. 11A includes determining, by computing device 102, e.g., transformation module 130, based on the second spatial orientation of the crowns of the superficial dental data, at least one of an arch centroid, one or more arch segment centroids, one or more tooth centroids, one or more crown centroids, one or more dental anatomical landmarks, one or more mesh vertices, one or more mesh triangles (1004)”; where volumetric dental data centroids and superficial dental data centroids are CBCT scans and intraoral scans, respectively. Raby, [0094] discloses “The technique illustrated in FIG. 14 includes determining, by computing device 102, e.g., transformation module 130, whether each respective degree of collinearity is greater than a threshold (1306).”)
Regarding Claim 11, the combination of Raby and Sun teaches “The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a long axis for each tooth of the final model using a root axis of each tooth” (Raby, [0078][ discloses “The technique illustrated in FIG. 11A includes determining, by computing device 102, e.g., transformation module 130, based on the first spatial orientation of the crowns of the volumetric dental data, at least one of an arch centroid, one or more arch segment centroids, one or more tooth centroids, one or more crown centroids, one or more dental anatomical landmarks, one or more mesh vertices, one or more mesh triangles (1002)”; where tooth centroid is a root axis of each tooth).
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Fig. 11B and 11C of Raby
Regarding Claim 12, the combination of Raby and Sun teaches “The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying the final model of the patient's teeth in a user interface configured to allow a user to interactively display subsets of segmented regions of the final model” (Raby, [0072] discloses “After generating the combined dental data, the technique illustrated in FIG. 7 includes outputting, by computing device 102, e.g., image output module 134, and for display, e.g., user interface 114, image data based on the combined dental data (714)”; see Fig. 1 User Interface 114 includes Input Device 120 and Output Device 122, indicating the user interface allows user interaction. Raby, [0107] also discloses “Additionally, the computer may segment dentition surfaces to produce one or more discrete, movable 3D tooth object models representing individual teeth. The computer may further separate these tooth models from the gingiva into separate objects. Segmentation may allow a user to characterize and manipulate the teeth arrangement as a set of individual objects.”)
Regarding Claim 14, the combination of Raby and Sun teaches “The method of claim 1, wherein the CBCT scan file comprises a Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) file” (Raby, [0037] discloses “Digital image 200 representative of volumetric dental data acquired from a CBCT scan of an inferior portion of a skull 202 of patient 101, including maxilla 204 and mandible 206, represented in DICOM image file format.”)
Regarding Claim 16, Claim 16 recites a system with elements corresponding to the steps recited in Claim 1. Therefore, the recited elements of this claim are mapped to the proposed combination in the same manner as the corresponding steps in its corresponding method claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the Raby and Sun references, presented in rejection of Claim 1, apply to this claim. Finally, the combination of Raby and Sun references discloses “A non-transitory computing device readable medium having instructions stored thereon that are executable by a processor of a remote processing agent to cause the remote processing agent” (Raby, [0006] discloses “In some examples, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores computer system-executable instructions that, when executed, configure a processor”).
Claims 4 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Raby et al. (US 2022/0110723 A1) in view of Sun et al. (US 2021/0321968 A1), further in view of Valles Leon (US 2024/0331136 A1).
Regarding Claim 4, the combination of Raby and Sun does not explicitly teach the method of Claim 4.
However, in an analogous field of endeavor, Valles Leon teaches “The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the processed CBCT scan file comprises receiving the processed CBCT scan file that has been processed to pre-segment the CBCT scan file based on the scan quality to reject CBCT scan files that cannot be segmented based on the scan quality that are blurry and/or below a minimum resolution threshold” (Valles Leon, [0062] discloses “At this step, the computing device may analyze the clarity, brightness, resolution, etc. of the image and analyze the focus of the image on the portion which contains the physical ailment. That is, if the background of the image is clear but the physical ailment is blurry, then the computing device can reject the image”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention to have modified Raby and Sun to incorporate the teachings of Valles Leon by rejecting images with blurry components. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to combine the Raby and Valles Leon references in order to improve diagnoses and efficiency using only images of appropriate quality: [0038] of Valles Leon discloses “The present disclosure allows for both improved efficiency of telehealth visits and allows for improved diagnoses by a healthcare provider, such as a doctor, a nurse, a pharmacist, or a medical assistant.” Accordingly, the combination of Raby, Sun, and Valles Leon discloses the invention of Claim 4.
Regarding Claim 20, Claim 20 recites a system with elements corresponding to the steps recited in Claim 4. Therefore, the recited elements of this claim are mapped to the proposed combination in the same manner as the corresponding steps in its corresponding method claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the Raby, Sun, and Valles Leon references, presented in the rejection of Claim 4, apply to this claim. Finally, Raby discloses “A non-transitory computing device readable medium having instructions stored thereon that are executable by a processor of a remote processing agent to cause the remote processing agent” (Raby, [0006] discloses “In some examples, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores computer system-executable instructions that, when executed, configure a processor”).
Claims 5 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Raby et al. (US 2022/0110723 A1) in view of Sun et al. (US 2021/0321968 A1), further in view of Song et al. (US 2019/0080456 A1).
Regarding Claim 5, the combination of Raby and Sun does not explicitly teach the method of Claim 5.
However, in an analogous field of endeavor, Song teaches “The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the processed CBCT scan file comprises receiving the processed CBCT scan file that has been processed to pre-segment the CBCT scan file by applying a trained neural network to determine if the CBCT scan file can be segmented, wherein the trained neural network is trained on database of CBCT scans having different scan qualities” (Song, [0101] discloses “When the training process is completed, the fully convolutional neural network may be deployed, in the corresponding image processing system and directly be used to complete the segmentation task for new images.” Song, [0089] discloses “In some embodiments, if the number of training samples is limited and has insufficient coverage for the actual situation, the training dataset may be subjected to enhancement operations to expand the number of training samples”; where performing enhancement operations to training data is training on a database of scans having different scan qualities).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention to have modified Raby and Sun to incorporate the teachings of Song by training a neural network for a segmentation task. Song, [0099] discloses “The same fully convolutional neural network after training may adapt to different types of images as well as different types of segmentation objects. The different types of images may be images obtained in different imaging modalities including, but not limited to, X-ray images, CT images, CBCT images…” thus it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to apply the teachings of Song to the method of Raby as Song explicitly teaches the trained neural network may be used with CBCT images. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to combine the Raby and Song references in order to improve versatility of the neural network: [0089] of Song discloses “In some embodiments, if the number of training samples is limited and has insufficient coverage for the actual situation, the training dataset may be subjected to enhancement operations to expand the number of training samples in order to improve the versatility and robustness of the fully convolutional neural network.” Accordingly, the combination of Raby and Song discloses the invention of Claim 5.
Regarding Claim 21, Claim 21 recites a system with elements corresponding to the steps recited in Claim 5. Therefore, the recited elements of this claim are mapped to the proposed combination in the same manner as the corresponding steps in its corresponding method claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the Raby, Sun, and Valles Leon references, presented in the rejection of Claim 5, apply to this claim. Finally, Raby discloses “A non-transitory computing device readable medium having instructions stored thereon that are executable by a processor of a remote processing agent to cause the remote processing agent” (Raby, [0006] discloses “In some examples, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores computer system-executable instructions that, when executed, configure a processor”).
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Raby et al. (US 2022/0110723 A1) in view of Sun et al. (US 2021/0321968 A1), further in view of Pan et al. (US 2013/0187946 A1).
Regarding Claim 17, the combination of Raby and Sun does not explicitly teach the device of Claim 17.
However, in an analogous field of endeavor, Pan teaches “The non-transitory computing device readable medium of claim 16, wherein preparing the patient CBCT scan file comprises limiting the file size of the patient CBCT scan file to less than a maximum file size” (Pan, [0087] discloses “The medical imaging data may include any medical imaging data that complies with the DICOM file format definition.” Pan, [0092] discloses “The maximum file size may also be set by a memory size. For example, in one or more embodiments, the maximum file size is about 5 MB”; where any medical imaging data that complies with DICOM file format is a patient CBCT scan file).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention to have modified Raby and Sun to incorporate the teachings of Pan by limiting a file size. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to combine the Raby, Sun, and Pan references in order to accommodate to the memory limitation: Pan, [0092] discloses “The maximum tile size may be based on an image size or a file size. In one or more embodiments, the maximum tile size is based on a GPU limitation, including a memory limitation, an image size limitation, or any other GPU limitation, including limitations imposed on GPU processing that are external to the GPU.” Accordingly, the combination of Raby and Pan discloses the invention of Claim 17.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3 and 19 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.
Claim 15 is allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding Claim 3, none of the previously cited prior art explicitly teach the method of Claim 3. Although as stated above, Pan teaches limiting file size is known in the art (Pan, [0092] discloses “The maximum file size may also be set by a memory size. For example, in one or more embodiments, the maximum file size is about 5 MB”), the cited prior art does not explicitly teach limiting file size by removing layers of a CBCT scan file. That is, none of the cited prior art explicitly teaches truncating a scanned file to remove layer(s) of the file in the field of medical image processing.
Claim 19 recites a system with elements corresponding to the steps recited in Claims 3 and thus contains the allowable subject matter of Claim 3.
Thus, none of the previously cited prior art, alone or in combination, provides a motivation to teach the ordered combination of “The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the processed CBCT scan file comprises receiving the processed CBCT scan file that has been processed to limit the file size to less than the maximum file size by truncating the patient CBCT scan file to remove one or more layers of the patient CBCT scan file.”
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
Regarding Claim 15, as further described in the Non-Final Rejection dated 03/18/2026, the combination of Raby and Sun teaches “A method of fusing a cone-beam computed
tomography (CBCT) scan with an intraoral scan” (Raby, [0036] discloses “First imaging device
106 may include a cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) scanner, a magnetic resonance
image (MRI) scanner, or an imaging device configured to produce digital image data that may
penetrate and distinguish between different types of dental anatomy tissues.” Raby, [0040]
discloses “For example, second imaging device 108 may include an intra-oral scanner or
imaging device configured to produce optical impressions of dental anatomy.” Raby, [0043] discloses “FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of an example technique for combining dental anatomy
data from two or more different imaging devices”), “the method comprising:
receiving in a remote processing agent a processed CBCT scan file that has been processed by a local processing agent by:
preparing the processed CBCT scan file from a patient CBCT scan file, including truncating the patient CBCT scan file to ” (Raby, [0065] discloses “After receiving the volumetric dental data, the technique illustrated in FIG. 7 includes segmenting, by computing device 102, e.g., segmentation module 128, a first subset of the volumetric dental data representative of crowns of teeth of the patient from a second subset of the volumetric dental data representative of roots of the teeth (706)”; where crowns of teeth are regions outside tooth roots) “and by
pre- segmenting the patient CBCT scan file to ensure that the processed CBCT scan file can be volumetrically segmented into individual teeth roots based on a scan quality of the patient CBCT scan file” (Raby, [0038] discloses “In some examples, first imaging device 106 may include pre-processing circuitry configured to filter the sub-gingival data. The at least one density threshold may include an upper density limit and a lower density limit of at least one tissue of the dental anatomy”; where keeping only features in a density threshold is pre-segmenting based on a scan quality; where a density is a scan quality) and rejecting patient CBCT scan files that cannot be segmented” (Sun, [0041] discloses “X-ray images that do not meet the pre-processing requirements will be rejected for subsequent processing. For example, images that cannot be segmented into bone structure regions or soft tissue regions clearly do not meet the requirements”)”;
“segmenting the processed CBCT scan file in the remote processing agent; and
fusing the segmented CBCT scan file with a segmented intraoral scan of crowns of the patient’s teeth to form a final model of the patient’s teeth including the roots (Raby, [0071] discloses “After transforming the second dental data, the technique illustrated in FIG. 7 includes generating, by computing device 102, e.g., image generation module 132, combined dental data by replacing the first subset of the sub-gingival data indicative of the first spatial orientation of the crowns with the transformed first subset of the superficial dental data indicative of the second spatial orientation of the crowns to stitch the transformed first subset of the superficial dental data indicative of the second spatial orientation of the crowns to the second subset of the volumetric dental data representative of the roots (712).” Raby, [0065] also discloses “By segmenting the first subset of the volumetric dental data from a second subset of the volumetric dental data, computing device 102 may define a sub-gingival portion (e.g., roots 316) and a superficial portion of the volumetric dental data (e.g., crowns 312)”; where superficial dental data is surface segmented intraoral scan; where sub-gingival data is volumetrically segmented CBCT scan).
Pan et al. (US 2013/0187946 A1) discloses limiting file size: (Pan, [0092] discloses “The maximum file size may also be set by a memory size. For example, in one or more embodiments, the maximum file size is about 5 MB”). However, the cited prior art does not explicitly teach limiting file size by removing regions in a CBCT scan file corresponding to regions outside of tooth roots. Additionally, although Raby, as cited above, teaches segmenting roots and crowns of teeth, Raby does not explicitly teach segmenting crown and root dental data and deleting, erasing, or otherwise removing layers of the scan such that a file size is limited or reduced below a maximum file size. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, segmenting root dental data from crown dental data may be interpreted to be removing regions outside of tooth roots, however even under the broadest reasonable interpretation the cited prior art does not explicitly teach removing layers of the patient CBCT scan file such that a file size is limited. That is, although segmenting roots and crowns of teeth is known in the art, and limited file size is also known in the art, none of the previously cited prior art references explicitly teaches “preparing the processed CBCT scan file from a patient CBCT scan file, including truncating the patient CBCT scan file to remove one or more layers of the patient CBCT scan file to limit a file size of the processed CBCT scan file to less than a maximum file size.”
Thus, none of the previously cited prior art references, alone or in combination, provide a motivation to teach the ordered combination of “A method of fusing a cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) scan with an intraoral scan, the method comprising: receiving in a remote processing agent a processed CBCT scan file that has been processed by a local processing agent by: preparing the processed CBCT scan file from a patient CBCT scan file, including truncating the patient CBCT scan file to remove one or more layers of the patient CBCT scan file to limit a file size of the processed CBCT scan file to less than a maximum file size, and by pre-segmenting the patient CBCT scan file to ensure that the processed CBCT scan file can be volumetrically segmented into individual teeth roots based on a scan quality of the patient CBCT scan file and rejecting patient CBCT scan files that cannot be segmented; segmenting the processed CBCT scan file in the remote processing agent; and fusing the segmented CBCT scan file with a segmented intraoral scan of crowns of the patient's teeth to form a final model of the patient's teeth including the roots.”
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
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 CAROLINE TABANCAY DUFFY whose telephone number is (703)756-1859. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:00 am - 5:30 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Amandeep Saini can be reached at 5712723382. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CAROLINE TABANCAY DUFFY/Examiner, Art Unit 2662
/AMANDEEP SAINI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2662
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