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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4-11, 14-21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Growth (WO 2021/240713) in view of Hitachi (JP 2011217902).
With respect to claims 1, 11 and 21, discloses a CRM, apparatus and method for presenting visual results of a particle beam treatment delivery, the method comprising: obtaining planning information of a planned particle beam treatment located in a treatment area of a patient; obtaining delivery information of a delivered particle beam treatment; determining an applicable dose deviation between a planned amount of radiation for the planned particle beam treatment and a delivered amount of radiation from the delivered particle beam treatment; and presenting a visualization that represents and the applicable dose deviation between the planned amount of radiation and the delivered amount of radiation. (see para. 0020, “According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, the radiation irradiation result calculation apparatus further includes an actual dose distribution difference display unit configured to calculate a difference between a planned dose distribution calculated in advance at the time of a treatment plan and a total actual dose distribution calculated by the total actual dose distribution calculation unit, receive a dose difference display color map that determines an allocation of colors according to the magnitude of the difference value, and color and display each voxel of the 2D tomographic image” , See para. 0021, 0032, 0033, 0081-0085)
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However Growth et al. fails to teach the dose is delivered to the treatment spots in a treatment area where the visualizations represents said treatment spots and the dose deviation for each spots.
Hitachi in the same field of endeavor in the subject of particle beam therapy discloses the dose is delivered to the treatment spots in a treatment area where the visualizations represents said treatment spots and the dose deviation for each spots (see para. 0042, 0043).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filling date to the dose to be delivered to the treatment spots in a treatment area where the visualizations represents said treatment spots and the dose deviation for each spots as disclosed by Hitachi because doing will allow for cancer treatment (see Hitachi para. 0001).
With respect to claims 4, 14, Growth in view of Hitachi disclose wherein the visualization uses different colors among the treatment spots to represent an amount of the applicable dose deviation between the planned amount of radiation and the delivered amount of radiation (see Growth para. 0018).
With respect to claims 5, 15 Growth in view of Hitachi disclose wherein a first color is used to represent respective spots of the treatment spots that have no dose deviation within a predetermined range, wherein a second color is used to represent respective spots of the treatment spots that have a dose deviation outside the predetermined range with less delivered radiation than planned radiation, and wherein a third color is used to represent respective spots of the treatment spots that have a dose deviation outside the predetermined range with more delivered radiation than planned radiation (see para. 0018, 0020, 0072, 0074-0080).
With respect to claims 6, 16 Growth in view of Hitachi disclose wherein the method further comprises: outputting the visualization in a graphical user interface; wherein the graphical user interface is configured to receive user interaction to change views and perspectives of the visualization (see para. 0020).
With respect to claims 7, 17, Growth in view of Hitachi disclose wherein the visualization provides a three-dimensional representation that arranges respective spheres to represent each of the treatment spots (see Hitachi, para. 0042).
With respect to claims 8, 18 Growth in view of Hitachi disclose the graphical user interface is configured to receive additional user interaction to change visibility of the respective spheres, based on at least one criterion (see para. 0042-0045, Hitachi).
With respect to claims 9 19, Growth in view of Hitachi disclose wherein the planning information is provided from a treatment planning system, and wherein the treatment spots correspond to discrete areas of the planned particle beam treatment in a treatment space mapped by the treatment planning system (see Hitachi, para. 0042-0046).
With respect to claims 10, 20, Growth in view of Hitachi disclose wherein the delivery information is provided from an oncology information system, and wherein the delivery information includes measurements for the delivered amount of radiation provided to the treatment spots (see para. 0042, 0046, Hitachi).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-3, 12-13 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.
The current prior art or record fails to teach herein the method further comprises: determining an applicable dose location deviation between a planned location of the planned particle beam treatment and a delivered location of the delivered particle beam treatment, for each of the treatment spots; wherein the visualization additionally represents the applicable dose location deviation between the planned location and the delivered location, using a directional indicator for respective spots of the treatment spots.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH M SANTOS RODRIGUEZ whose telephone number is (571)270-7782. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:30am to 5:30pm.
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/JOSEPH M SANTOS RODRIGUEZ/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3797
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