DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on May 30, 2024 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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
General indefiniteness:
Regarding claims 1, and 13-14, a limitation is present directed toward adjusting a threshold in accordance with an input of the threshold (the last limitation in each of claims 1, 13 and 14). It is unclear what threshold is being adjusted. Specifically, the claims require acquiring a plurality of thresholds set for extraction targets; thus it is unclear if each of the thresholds in the plurality of thresholds are adjusted, or only one respective threshold. Per Figure 2, element S106 determines if the threshold should be changed or not; upon review of the applicant’s PG Publication, it appears at paragraph 0058, “If the slider bar 125 is operated by the user and the threshold of “bone” or “blood vessel” is changed (Step S106-Yes), the processing circuitry 15, by the adjustment function 154, redetermines, in regard to the tissue, the threshold of which was changed;” thus the specification seems to disclose that one or more of the plurality of thresholds could be changed. However, the claim appears to only claim one threshold is changed (Claim 1, “adjust the threshold in accordance with an input of the threshold).
Claims 2-12 are further rejected for their dependency on claim 1.
Relative terminology:
The term “large” in claim 6 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “large” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. For the sake of examination, the difference between the values being “large” is read as there being any difference between he luminance and the reference value.
The term “high” in claim 11 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “high” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. For the sake of examination “probability that is high” will be read as “display the tissue with the existence probability greater than 0.
The term “high” in claim 12 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “high” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. For the sake of examination “high preset priority” will be read as a tissue with a preset priority greater than 0.
Antecedent Basis:
Claim 11 recites the limitation "the existence probability" in line 7. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claim(s) 1-5 and 13-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Publication No. 2015/0003706 to Eftestøl et al. (hereinafter Eftestøl), and further in view of U.S. Publication No. 2021/0142480 to Thomson et al. (hereinafter Thomson).
Regarding independent claim 1, Eftestøl discloses A medical information processing apparatus comprising processing circuitry (abstract, “The invention provides a method of image transformation of a biomedical image;” paragraph 0144, “FIG. 17 schematically shows a system 100 suitable for carrying out the invention. An imaging apparatus (such as an MRI machine, CT machine, ultrasound apparatus, etc.) 110 is provided for acquiring biomedical images. The imaging apparatus 110 can acquire images for gathering the development image set as well as for acquiring images for transformation and evaluation. Imaging apparatus 110 is connected to computer 120 which in turn is connected to a visual display unit 130 (e.g. a monitor) and one or more input apparatuses 140 (e.g. mouse, keyboard, trackpad, touchscreen, etc.). Additionally the computer 120 is connected to a database 130 which may be used to store the development image set as well as any other data or parameters used in the processing.”), the processing circuitry being configured to:
compute a probability of correspondence to a specific extraction target with respect to each of areas on a medical image, in regard to each of kinds of extraction targets (paragraph 0019, “The invention provides a technique for representing a biomedical image (e.g. of the myocardium) as a probability map where high transform values indicate damaged tissue, low transform values indicate normal tissue and intermediate values indicate areas where damaged and healthy tissues are interwoven;” paragraph 0020, “The values of the transformation preferably vary on a scale in which the extremes of the scale represent high and low probabilities. In other words the transform values may be related to probability values. For example high values may indicate high probability and low values may indicate low probability of tissue being of the first tissue type;” paragraph 0030, “A single threshold may be used, e.g. taking all voxels with a transform value greater than a certain threshold will identify voxels with above a certain probability of being scar tissue. Similarly healthy tissue may be segmented by taking voxels with below a certain threshold value. The probability mapping may thus be used to automatically delineate scar tissue from healthy tissue.”);
acquire a plurality of thresholds that are set for the respective kinds of the extraction targets, and determine whether the area corresponds to the extraction target, based on the threshold and the probability, in regard to each of the areas and in regard to each of the kinds of the extraction targets (paragraph 0030, “paragraph 0030, “A single threshold may be used, e.g. taking all voxels with a transform value greater than a certain threshold will identify voxels with above a certain probability of being scar tissue. Similarly healthy tissue may be segmented by taking voxels with below a certain threshold value. The probability mapping may thus be used to automatically delineate scar tissue from healthy tissue.”).
Eftestøl fails to explicitly disclose as further recited. However, Thomson discloses adjust the threshold in accordance with an input of the threshold (paragraph 0092, “In some embodiments, each image is provided with a slider for the or each threshold value used to render the image. Adjusting the slider position will show the effect of adjusting the threshold value.”).
Eftestøl is directed toward “The invention provides a method of image transformation of a biomedical image, said method comprising: for each voxel of said biomedical image, calculating a transform value indicative of the likelihood of that voxel representing a first tissue type (such as scar tissue) (abstract)” Thomson is directed toward “A data processing apparatus comprises processing circuitry configured to: apply a process to a medical data set to obtain multiply-valued and/or continuously-valued process outputs; determine at least one threshold value dependent on patient-specific clinical information; and apply the determined at least one threshold value to the multiply-valued and/or continuously-valued process outputs to obtain thresholded process outputs (abstract).” As can be easily seen by one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date, Eftestøl and Thomson are directed toward similar methods of endeavor of medical image analysis. Further, one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would easily understand a user may want control over the threshold value, in order to considered regions with varying probabilities as being a specific tissue type. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Thomson in order to ensure a user can adjust the desired output based on the probability threshold to be more specific to what they are interested in.
Regarding dependent claim 2, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. Additionally, Eftestøl in the combination further discloses wherein the extraction target is tissue (paragraph 0030, “Preferably therefore the method further includes segmenting the image by comparing the transform value of the voxels to one or more threshold values. A single threshold may be used, e.g. taking all voxels with a transform value greater than a certain threshold will identify voxels with above a certain probability of being scar tissue. Similarly healthy tissue may be segmented by taking voxels with below a certain threshold value. The probability mapping may thus be used to automatically delineate scar tissue from healthy tissue. ”).
Regarding dependent claim 3, the rejection of claim 2 is incorporated herein. Additionally, Thomson in the combination further discloses wherein the processing circuitry is configured to:
cause a display to display, based on a determination result of the area, a superimposition image in which a layer representing the area of the tissue is superimposed on the medical image (paragraph 0069, “The image may comprise a heat map which is representative of probability values. A region that has been determined by thresholding may be presented along with the heat map. For example, the thresholded region may be overlaid on the heat map.”); and
cause the display to display an input part that accepts an input of the threshold, update the determination result of the area in accordance with adjustment of the threshold by an operation of the input part, and update the display of the layer in accordance with the update of the determination result (paragraph 0092, “In some embodiments, each image is provided with a slider for the or each threshold value used to render the image. Adjusting the slider position will show the effect of adjusting the threshold value.”).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would easily understand a user may want control over the threshold value, in order to considered regions with varying probabilities as being a specific tissue type. For example, they may be interested in viewing regions that were on the cusp of a higher threshold, and would need to lower the threshold to see these areas. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Thomson in order to ensure a user can adjust the desired output based on the probability threshold to be more specific to what they are interested in.
Regarding dependent claim 4, the rejection of claim 2 is incorporated herein. Additionally, Eftestøl in the combination further discloses wherein the processing circuitry is configured to accept an input of a medical image (paragraph 0086, “ A biomedical image with the myocardium and optionally a mask image segmenting the myocardium is input to the computer program”), and to compute the probability in accordance with a trained model (paragraph 0086, “The function expressions and parameters necessary for computing x and P(scar|x) are stored in memory. For each pixel, x and P(scar|x) are computed and stored in memory;” paragraph 0094, “ A classifier is trained to distinguish between the two tissues automatically using the explained features.”).
Regarding dependent claim 5, the rejection of claim 2 is incorporated herein. Additionally, Eftestøl in the combination further discloses wherein the processing circuitry is configured to compute the probability based on a luminance value of the medical image (paragraph 0133, “The probability maps calculated for the two features, DC and textural feature, give different information. The DC feature will give high probabilities of being scar to areas that are brighter in the CMR image, which mimics the way the cardiologist reads the MRI”).
Regarding independent claim 13, the rejection of claim 1 applies directly. Additionally, Eftestøl in the combination further discloses A method (abstract, “The invention provides a method of image transformation of a biomedical image”) comprising:
computing a probability that each of areas on a medical image corresponds to a specific extraction target with respect to a plurality of extraction targets (paragraph 0019, “The invention provides a technique for representing a biomedical image (e.g. of the myocardium) as a probability map where high transform values indicate damaged tissue, low transform values indicate normal tissue and intermediate values indicate areas where damaged and healthy tissues are interwoven;” paragraph 0020, “The values of the transformation preferably vary on a scale in which the extremes of the scale represent high and low probabilities. In other words the transform values may be related to probability values. For example high values may indicate high probability and low values may indicate low probability of tissue being of the first tissue type;” paragraph 0030, “A single threshold may be used, e.g. taking all voxels with a transform value greater than a certain threshold will identify voxels with above a certain probability of being scar tissue. Similarly healthy tissue may be segmented by taking voxels with below a certain threshold value. The probability mapping may thus be used to automatically delineate scar tissue from healthy tissue.”);
acquiring a plurality of thresholds that are set for respective kinds of the extraction targets, and determining whether the area corresponds to the extraction target, based on the threshold and the probability, in regard to each of the areas and in regard to each of the kinds of the extraction targets (paragraph 0030, “paragraph 0030, “A single threshold may be used, e.g. taking all voxels with a transform value greater than a certain threshold will identify voxels with above a certain probability of being scar tissue. Similarly healthy tissue may be segmented by taking voxels with below a certain threshold value. The probability mapping may thus be used to automatically delineate scar tissue from healthy tissue.”).
Eftestøl fails to explicitly disclose as further recited. However, Thomson discloses adjusting the threshold in accordance with an input of the threshold (paragraph 0092, “In some embodiments, each image is provided with a slider for the or each threshold value used to render the image. Adjusting the slider position will show the effect of adjusting the threshold value.”).
Eftestøl is directed toward “The invention provides a method of image transformation of a biomedical image, said method comprising: for each voxel of said biomedical image, calculating a transform value indicative of the likelihood of that voxel representing a first tissue type (such as scar tissue) (abstract)” Thomson is directed toward “A data processing apparatus comprises processing circuitry configured to: apply a process to a medical data set to obtain multiply-valued and/or continuously-valued process outputs; determine at least one threshold value dependent on patient-specific clinical information; and apply the determined at least one threshold value to the multiply-valued and/or continuously-valued process outputs to obtain thresholded process outputs (abstract).” As can be easily seen by one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date, Eftestøl and Thomson are directed toward similar methods of endeavor of medical image analysis. Further, one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would easily understand a user may want control over the threshold value, in order to considered regions with varying probabilities as being a specific tissue type. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Thomson in order to ensure a user can adjust the desired output based on the probability threshold to be more specific to what they are interested in.
Regarding independent claim 14, the rejection of claim 1 applies directly. Additionally, Eftestøl in the combination further discloses A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a program for causing a computer to execute (paragraph 0048, “The invention also extends to a method of manufacturing a software product which is in the form of a physical data carrier, comprising storing on the data carrier instructions which when executed by a computer cause the computer to carry out any of the above-described methods.;” paragraph 0146, “During operation, the CPU 121 and/or GPU 122 are used to execute a program which may be stored and/or loaded onto the computer and run to cause the processors to execute the program instructions to carry out the image transformation methods of the invention, such as described above.”):
a function of computing a probability that each of areas on a medical image corresponds to a specific extraction target with respect to a plurality of extraction targets (paragraph 0019, “The invention provides a technique for representing a biomedical image (e.g. of the myocardium) as a probability map where high transform values indicate damaged tissue, low transform values indicate normal tissue and intermediate values indicate areas where damaged and healthy tissues are interwoven;” paragraph 0020, “The values of the transformation preferably vary on a scale in which the extremes of the scale represent high and low probabilities. In other words the transform values may be related to probability values. For example high values may indicate high probability and low values may indicate low probability of tissue being of the first tissue type;” paragraph 0030, “A single threshold may be used, e.g. taking all voxels with a transform value greater than a certain threshold will identify voxels with above a certain probability of being scar tissue. Similarly healthy tissue may be segmented by taking voxels with below a certain threshold value. The probability mapping may thus be used to automatically delineate scar tissue from healthy tissue.”);
a function of acquiring a plurality of thresholds that are set for respective kinds of the extraction targets, and determining whether the area corresponds to the extraction target, based on the threshold and the probability, in regard to each of the areas and in regard to each of the kinds of the extraction targets (paragraph 0030, “paragraph 0030, “A single threshold may be used, e.g. taking all voxels with a transform value greater than a certain threshold will identify voxels with above a certain probability of being scar tissue. Similarly healthy tissue may be segmented by taking voxels with below a certain threshold value. The probability mapping may thus be used to automatically delineate scar tissue from healthy tissue.”).
Eftestøl fails to explicitly disclose as further recited. However, Thomson discloses a function of adjusting the threshold in accordance with an input of the threshold (paragraph 0092, “In some embodiments, each image is provided with a slider for the or each threshold value used to render the image. Adjusting the slider position will show the effect of adjusting the threshold value.”).
Eftestøl is directed toward “The invention provides a method of image transformation of a biomedical image, said method comprising: for each voxel of said biomedical image, calculating a transform value indicative of the likelihood of that voxel representing a first tissue type (such as scar tissue) (abstract)” Thomson is directed toward “A data processing apparatus comprises processing circuitry configured to: apply a process to a medical data set to obtain multiply-valued and/or continuously-valued process outputs; determine at least one threshold value dependent on patient-specific clinical information; and apply the determined at least one threshold value to the multiply-valued and/or continuously-valued process outputs to obtain thresholded process outputs (abstract).” As can be easily seen by one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date, Eftestøl and Thomson are directed toward similar methods of endeavor of medical image analysis. Further, one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would easily understand a user may want control over the threshold value, in order to considered regions with varying probabilities as being a specific tissue type. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Thomson in order to ensure a user can adjust the desired output based on the probability threshold to be more specific to what they are interested in.
Claim(s) 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Eftestøl and Thomson as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of JP5222067B2 (a machine translation from Google Patents is provided, hereinafter JP ‘067).
Regarding dependent claim 6, the rejection of claim 2 is incorporated herein. Additionally, Eftestøl and Thomson in the combination fails to explicitly disclose wherein the processing circuitry is configured to issue a warning in a case where a difference between a luminance value of the area determined to correspond to the tissue and a reference value is large.
However, JP ‘067 discloses wherein the processing circuitry is configured to issue a warning in a case where a difference between a luminance value of the area determined to correspond to the tissue and a reference value is large (page 4, “Setting and setting means for setting an inner reference portion inside the target region, and the ultrasonic wave based on a mutual relationship between an outer luminance distribution for the outer reference portion and an inner luminance distribution for the inner reference portion;” page 5, “In any case, it is desirable to adopt a method that can provide an indicator of whether the difference in brightness between the inside and outside is large or small.”).
As noted above, Eftestøl and Thomson are directed toward similar methods of endeavor of medical image analysis. JP ‘067 is directed toward a technique for tracing a contour of a target tissue in ultrasound images (page 4). AS can be easily seen by one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, Eftestøl, Thomson and JP ‘067 are all directed toward similar methods of endeavor of medical image analysis. Further, JP ‘067 allows for automated tracing of boundaries using luminance differences. It is well known to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date that various tissue types can have difference luminance values. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of JP ‘067 in order to ensure a user is aware of luminance differences when comparing to reference values; for example, comparing luminance of healthy tissue to a tissue in question may indicate based on how big the difference is, if the tissue in question is diseased or not.
Claim(s) 7 and 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Eftestøl and Thomson as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of U.S. Publication No. 2020/0085382 to Taerum et al. (hereinafter Taerum).
Regarding dependent claim 7, the rejection of claim 2 is incorporated herein. Additionally, Eftestøl and Thomson in the combination fail to explicitly disclose wherein the processing circuitry is configured to specify an overlapping area corresponding to a plurality of tissues, and to cause a display to display information relating to the overlapping area.
However, Taerum discloses wherein the processing circuitry is configured to specify an overlapping area corresponding to a plurality of tissues (paragraph 0348, “In order to accommodate the need to be able to segment multiple regions, the functionality may be organized as a list of independent, possibly overlapping, segmentations, each of which defines a single connected region.”), and to cause a display to display information relating to the overlapping area (paragraph 0348, “In order to accommodate the need to be able to segment multiple regions, the functionality may be organized as a list of independent, possibly overlapping, segmentations, each of which defines a single connected region. Each region may be assigned a code, which is used to control the color of the segmentation when it is displayed to the user. ”).
As noted above, Eftestøl and Thomson are directed toward similar methods of endeavor of medical image analysis. Taerum is directed toward “an automated end-to-end pipeline for accurate lesion detection and segmentation (abstract).” As can be easily seen by one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, Eftestøl, Thomson and Taerum are all directed toward similar methods of endeavor of medical image analysis. Further, one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would easily understand there can be overlapping regions when segmenting tissue types. These overlapping regions may need to be reviewed by a user to understand what type the tissues in the overlapping region should be classified as. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Taerum in order to ensure users are presented information for review related to overlapping regions so that an accurate determination can be made.
Regarding dependent claim 9, the rejection of claim 7 is incorporated herein. Additionally, Eftestøl, Thomson and Taerum in the combination as a whole fail to explicitly disclose wherein the processing circuitry is configured to re-specify the overlapping area each time the threshold of the tissue changes, and to update the display of the information relating to the overlapping area. However, Thomson discloses at paragraph 0092, “In some embodiments, each image is provided with a slider for the or each threshold value used to render the image. Adjusting the slider position will show the effect of adjusting the threshold value.” Thomson is read that there is an interactive slider bar where the user adjustment effects the display algorithms. Said differently, if a threshold is adjusted, the implications of the threshold on the image are reran, and thus the display is also updated. Thus, an overlapping region is read as changing and being updated, as the threshold is changed by a user. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching of Eftestøl, Thomson and Taerum to ensure the changes a user makes to the display parameters update the actual visual display output.
Regarding dependent claim 10, the rejection of claim 7 is incorporated herein. Additionally, Taerum in the combination further discloses wherein the processing circuitry is configured to accept selection of a tissue to be displayed on the overlapping area (paragraph 0348, “In order to accommodate the need to be able to segment multiple regions, the functionality may be organized as a list of independent, possibly overlapping, segmentations, each of which defines a single connected region;” paragraph 0350, “When a segmentation is to be edited, it may first be put into a “selected” state, de-selecting any previously selected segmentation. ”).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would easily understand there can be overlapping regions when segmenting tissue types. These overlapping regions may need to be reviewed by a user to understand what type the tissues in the overlapping region should be classified as. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Taerum in order to allow users to select the region and determine its appropriate classification.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8 and 11-12 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim 8:
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the closest prior arts of record teach methods of determining probabilities applied to medical images to perform detection of various tissue types. However, none of them alone or in any combination teaches determining a default value of the threshold which prevents overlapping areas.
The closest prior art being previously cited Thomson discloses “A data processing apparatus comprises processing circuitry configured to: apply a process to a medical data set to obtain multiply-valued and/or continuously-valued process outputs; determine at least one threshold value dependent on patient-specific clinical information; and apply the determined at least one threshold value to the multiply-valued and/or continuously-valued process outputs to obtain thresholded process outputs (abstract).” Further, Thomson allows for a slider bar for threshold adjustment (paragraph 0092), and calculation of a default threshold value at paragraph 0050, “In some embodiments, a fixed, default threshold value may be used as the approximate threshold.” However, this threshold has nothing to do with areas overlapping or not.
Thus, Thomson fails to disclose determining a default value of the threshold which prevents overlapping areas.
Claim 11:
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the closest prior arts of record teach methods of displaying overlapping data sets for users to review. However, none of them alone or in any combination teaches selecting a tissue to be displayed based on including the tissue of a volume equal to or greater than a set value and display the tissue with the existence probability that is high in regard to a segment with a tissue volume less than the set value.
The closest prior art being previously cited Taerum discloses segmenting a region further into different segments at paragraph 0348, “In order to accommodate the need to be able to segment multiple regions, the functionality may be organized as a list of independent, possibly overlapping, segmentations, each of which defines a single connected region” and further allowing a user to select specific segments at paragraph 0350, “When a segmentation is to be edited, it may first be put into a “selected” state, de-selecting any previously selected segmentation. In this way, the user is able to use the tool to interact with only a single segmentation at a time without needing to worry about accidentally editing neighboring or overlapping segmentations.”
However, Taerum fails to disclose selecting a tissue to be displayed based on including the tissue of a volume equal to or greater than a set value and display the tissue with the existence probability that is high in regard to a segment with a tissue volume less than the set value.
Claim 12:
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the closest prior arts of record teach methods of displaying overlapping data sets for users to review. However, none of them alone or in any combination teaches selecting a tissue to be displayed based on including the tissue of a volume equal to or greater than a set value and display the tissue with a high preset priority.
The closest prior art being previously cited Taerum discloses segmenting a region further into different segments at paragraph 0348, “In order to accommodate the need to be able to segment multiple regions, the functionality may be organized as a list of independent, possibly overlapping, segmentations, each of which defines a single connected region” and further allowing a user to select specific segments at paragraph 0350, “When a segmentation is to be edited, it may first be put into a “selected” state, de-selecting any previously selected segmentation. In this way, the user is able to use the tool to interact with only a single segmentation at a time without needing to worry about accidentally editing neighboring or overlapping segmentations.”
However, Taerum fails to disclose selecting a tissue to be displayed based on including the tissue of a volume equal to or greater than a set value and display the tissue with a high preset priority.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
U.S. Publication No. 2019/0005684 to De Fauw et al. discloses, “Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for generating a final classification output for an image of eye tissue (abstract).”
U.S. Patent No. 6,658,080 to Poole et al. discloses, “A computer automated method for setting visualization parameter boundaries in a preset for displaying an image from a 3D data set (abstract)”
U.S. Patent No. 7,136,518 to Griffin et al. discloses, “ methods for displaying diagnostic results obtained from a tissue sample. In general, the invention assigns tissue-class probability values to discrete regions of a patient sample, and creates an overlay for displaying the results (abstract)”
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/COURTNEY JOAN NELSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2661