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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 02/09/2024 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claim 11 objected to because of the following informalities: “apelvic” should read as “a pelvic”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 12 objected to because of the following informalities: “Megnetic” should be magnetic. Appropriate correction is required.
The examiner will interpret “apelvic” as “ a pelvic” and “Megnetic” as “Magnetic” for claims 11 and 12 respectively.
Status of Claim(s)
Claim(s) 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claim(s) 1-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wang (US 12150808 B2).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim(s) 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because claim 15 is directed towards a “computer program product” the includes “computer readable code”, which broadly encompasses a computer program per se. Such computer programs, per se, are not, in or of themselves, methods or machines, nor are they physical products of manufacture or compositions of matter. Therefore, such programs do not fall into any categories of eligible subject matter defined in 35 U.S.C. 101 and are not, by themselves, eligible for patent protection. Such program s can be eligible for patent protection if claimed as embodied on or in a computer-readable storage device or medium, but only if the claim clearly and unambiguously excludes transitory, propagating signals from the full scope of the claimed subject matter, such as signals are also not eligible under 35 U.S.C 101. It is suggested that amending the claim language to define the computer program product as having the code instructions embodied on a “non-transitory computer-readable medium” would satisfy these requirements and would limit the claimed invention to eligible subject matter.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(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) 1-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wang (US 12150808 B2).
Regarding Claim 1:
Wang (US 12150808 B2) teaches: An apparatus for use in processing image data relating to a subject, the apparatus comprising (Col 1. Lines 23-28, “An ultrasound imaging device is used to image the inside of a target tissue, and, based on the characteristics of some medical parameters, to perform measurements on the image obtained by the ultrasound imaging, thereby enabling the doctor to obtain the actual anatomical structure parameters of the target tissue of the patient being examined”):
a memory comprising instruction data representing a set of instructions (Col 25. Lines 40-50, “Based on this understanding, the essential part or the part contributing to the existing technology of the technical solutions of the present disclosure may be embodied in the form of a software product, which may be carried on a non-volatile computer-readable storage media (such as ROM, magnetic disk, optical disk, hard disk, server cloud space) and include multiple instruction which may enable a terminal device (which may be a mobile phone, a computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to implement the system structures and methods of the embodiments of the present disclosure.”); and
a processor configured to communicate with the memory (Col 6. Lines 12-15, “Based on this understanding, the essential part or the part contributing to the existing technology of the technical solutions of the present disclosure may be embodied in the form of a software product, which may be carried on a non-volatile computer-readable storage media (such as ROM, magnetic disk, optical disk, hard disk, server cloud space) and include multiple instruction which may enable a terminal device (which may be a mobile phone, a computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to implement the system structures and methods of the embodiments of the present disclosure.”) and to execute the set of instructions, wherein the set of instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to (Col 6. Lines 19-31, “The ultrasound imaging system may be connected to an input/output device through the input/output port 108, and may receive, through the input/output port 108, an instruction signal inputted through the input/output device. The instruction signal may include a control instruction for controlling the timing of the transmitting and receiving of the ultrasonic waves, an operation input instruction for editing or annotating, etc. the ultrasound images, an output instruction for reminding the user, or other types of instructions. Generally, the operation instruction obtained when a user edits, annotates, or performs other operation on the ultrasound image may be used for measurement of the target tissue.”):
responsive to receiving input indicating a point in an image corresponding to an anatomical feature or sub-feature of the subject (Col 10. Lines 55-59, “The positions of the measurement points (such as anatomical features, etc.) may be inputted one by one in a programmable order, and the available measurement results may be updated and displayed in real time as the input information increases.”),
determine if sufficient points to perform a measurement have been received based on a comparison of anatomical features and/or sub-features corresponding to the indicated point and any other indicated points with pre-stored anatomical data (Col 3. Lines 35-44, “A large part of these parameters depend on how to establish an appropriate reference coordinate system. For example, both BSD and PVD need a reference to the position of the symphysis pubis and its central axis, which depends on the establishment of a reference coordinate system with the central axis of the symphysis pubis being the X axis.”), the pre-stored anatomical data indicating for at least one measurement the anatomical features and/or sub-features required to perform the at least one measurement (Col 8. Lines 43-49, “A large part of these parameters depend on how to establish an appropriate reference coordinate system. For example, both BSD and PVD need a reference to the position of the symphysis pubis and its central axis, which depends on the establishment of a reference coordinate system with the central axis of the symphysis pubis being the X axis.”); and
if sufficient points to perform a measurement have been received, perform the measurement (Col 4. Lines 35-40, “A large part of these parameters depend on how to establish an appropriate reference coordinate system. For example, both BSD and PVD need a reference to the position of the symphysis pubis and its central axis, which depends on the establishment of a reference coordinate system with the central axis of the symphysis pubis being the X axis. outputting the values of the multiple measurement items”).
Regarding Claim 2:
Wang teaches: The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, and further teaches, wherein the processor is further caused to determine to which anatomical feature or sub feature the point corresponds based on received input from a user indicating the anatomical feature or sub feature to which the point corresponds (Col 15. Lines 11-18, “In the first method, the inferoposterior margin of the symphysis pubis and the central axis of the symphysis pubis inputted by the user on the ultrasound image may be received, and the first Cartesian coordinate system, the second Cartesian coordinate system or the third Cartesian coordinate system may be established according to the user input.”), or by classifying the point into a class corresponding to the anatomical feature or sub feature (Col 17. Lines 58-64, User defined classification of parts of a reference coordinate system relating to parts of a pelvic floor (sub features)).
Regarding Claim 3:
Wang teaches: The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the processor is further caused to determine to which anatomical feature or sub feature the point corresponds by classifying the point into a class corresponding to an anatomical feature using a first portion of the image around the point and using the position of the point relative to the image (Fig. 6, 7, and 17-27, Figures 6 and 7 demonstrate showing a point and classification of urethral, pubouretheral, and pubovesical sections. Figures 17-27 demonstrate measurement, segmentation, and classification of different parts of the pelvic floor based on angle and distance measurements along certain angles), and
if the class into which the point is classified comprises sub-classes corresponding to sub-features of the anatomical feature, classify the point into a sub-class of the class using a second portion of the image around the point (Fig. 6, 7, and 17-27, Figures 6 and 7 demonstrate showing a point and classification of urethral, pubouretheral, and pubovesical sections. Figures 17-27 demonstrate measurement, segmentation, and classification of different parts of the pelvic floor based on angle and distance measurements along certain angles).
Regarding Claim 4:
Wang teaches: The apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein the classification of the point is further based on at least one of: the classification of a preceding point; the position of the point in the image relative to a previously classified point; the location of the point in an order of input of points relative to a predicted sequence of input of points (Col 16. Lines 7-14, automatic location of points are identified and further points are determined based on those points).
Regarding Claim 5:
Wang teaches: The apparatus as claimed in any of claims 3, and further teaches, wherein confidence of the classification of a previously classified point is updated based on at least one of: the classification of the point; the position of the point in the image relative to the previously classified point (Col 21-22, Lines 53-3, Reference of points closest based on section of urethrovesical junction).
Regarding Claim 6:
Wang teaches: The apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein the processor is further configured to:
if the point is classified into the same class, or the same sub-class where the class is separable into sub-classes, as a previously classified point, request input indicating which classification should be used for at least one of the point and the previously classified point (Col 18, Lines 41-52, User helps the automatic measurement and classification system of points based on reference coordinate system by increasing and rearranging input orders for classified points.); and
responsive to receiving an indication of a classification to be used for at least one of the point or the previously classified point, updating the classification of at least one of the point or the previously classified point based on the received indication (Col 18-19, Lines 53-3, As information updates and point amounts increase, reclassification of points is determined based of measured distance and angle or different sections of the pelvic floor).
Regarding Claim 7:
Wang teaches: The apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein the classification is performed using a classification algorithm which has been trained using portions of training images around points corresponding to at least one of the anatomical features and the anatomical sub-features (Col 16. Lines 46-63, Training method uses targeting window to scan portions of an image to identify areas of symphysis pubis region).
Regarding Claim 8:
Wang teaches: The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the first portion of the image is larger than the second portion of the image (Fig. 27 and Col 16. Lines 49-55, First portion is the larger image and a second portion of the image is taken as a window).
Regarding Claim 9:
Wang teaches: The apparatus as claimed in claim l, wherein the measurement is performed using the position of the point in the image (Col 4. Lines 28-34, “determining multiple anatomical feature items of which positions are to be determined during a measurement of the multiple measurement items according to a relevance (in other words, relationship) among the multiple measurement items to obtain a feature set that comprises the multiple anatomical feature items and in which anatomical feature items are different from each other;”).
Regarding Claim 10:
Wang teaches: The apparatus as claimed in claim l, wherein the processor is further configured to at least one of: store the point with a label corresponding to the anatomical feature or sub-feature; cause the point to be displayed on a display showing the image; when the point corresponds to the symphysis pubis, cause a horizontal line through the point to be displayed on a display showing the image (Fig. 19-22 and 25-27, Images of symphysis pubis with points identifying certain regions and a horizontal axis line displayed ).
Regarding Claim 11:
Wang teaches: The apparatus as claimed in claim l, wherein at least one of: the anatomical feature or sub-feature is a feature or sub-feature usable for assessing a pelvic floor of the subject; the measurement is a measurement usable for assessing apelvic floor of the subject (Col 7. Lines 2-21, Measurement of pelvic floor tissue of patient including various other anatomical structures. The measurements conducted are used to asses for pelvic floor strength and possibility of pelvic floor dysfunction).
Regarding Claim 12:
Wang teaches: The apparatus as claimed in claim l, wherein the image data is any one of an ultrasound image and megnetic resonance image of the subject (Background, Col. 1, Lines 28-37,Use of Pelvic Floor ultrasound and comparison to MRI).
Regarding Claim 13:
Wang teaches: An ultrasound imaging system comprising the apparatus of claim 1 and an ultrasound transducer with which to obtain image data relating to the image (Col 4. Lines 15-24, “In one embodiment, an ultrasound imaging system may be provided, which may include: a probe; a transmitting circuit which excites the probe to transmit an ultrasonic beam to a target tissue; a receiving circuit which receives ultrasonic echoes of the ultrasonic beam through the probe to obtain ultrasonic echo signals a processor which obtains an ultrasound image based on the ultrasound echo signals; …”)
Regarding Claim 14:
Wang teaches: A computer implemented method for use in processing image data relating to a subject, the method comprising (Abstract, “A method for measuring parameters in an ultrasonic image, includes: obtaining an ultrasound image by receiving ultrasound echoes from a target tissue with an ultrasound probe and contains an area representing the target tissue;):
responsive to receiving input indicating a point in an image corresponding to an anatomical feature or sub-feature of the subject (Col 10. Lines 55-59, “The positions of the measurement points (such as anatomical features, etc.) may be inputted one by one in a programmable order, and the available measurement results may be updated and displayed in real time as the input information increases.”),
determining if sufficient points to perform a measurement have been received based on a comparison of anatomical features and/or sub-features corresponding to the indicated point and any other indicated points with pre-stored anatomical data (Col 3. Lines 35-44, “A large part of these parameters depend on how to establish an appropriate reference coordinate system. For example, both BSD and PVD need a reference to the position of the symphysis pubis and its central axis, which depends on the establishment of a reference coordinate system with the central axis of the symphysis pubis being the X axis.”), the pre-stored anatomical data indicating for at least one measurement the anatomical features and/or sub-features required to perform the at least one measurement (Col 8. Lines 43-49, “A large part of these parameters depend on how to establish an appropriate reference coordinate system. For example, both BSD and PVD need a reference to the position of the symphysis pubis and its central axis, which depends on the establishment of a reference coordinate system with the central axis of the symphysis pubis being the X axis.”); and
if sufficient points to perform a measurement have been received, performing the measurement (Col 4. Lines 35-40, “A large part of these parameters depend on how to establish an appropriate reference coordinate system. For example, both BSD and PVD need a reference to the position of the symphysis pubis and its central axis, which depends on the establishment of a reference coordinate system with the central axis of the symphysis pubis being the X axis. outputting the values of the multiple measurement items”).
Regarding Claim 15:
Wang teaches: A computer program product comprising computer readable medium the computer readable medium having computer readable code embodied therein, the computer readable code being configured such that, on execution by a suitable computer or processor, the computer or processor is caused to perform the method as claimed in claim 14 (Col 25. Lines 40-50, Implemented hardware includes computer-readable medium connected to a computer/processor).
Relevant Prior Art Directed to State of Art
Melapudi (US 20230404533 A1)
Gogna (US 20230267618 A1)
Pavlovskaia (US 20210251664 A1)
BLAU (US 20210248779 A1)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DYLAN J SHERRILLO whose telephone number is (703)756-5605. The examiner can normally be reached 1st week of bi-week: Mon-Wed 7am-5:30pm PST, Thurs: 7am-4:30pm PST, Fri off / 2nd week of bi-week: Mon-Wed 7am-5:30pm PST, Thurs-Fri: 7am-4:30pm PST.
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/D.J.S./Examiner, Art Unit 2665
/BOBBAK SAFAIPOUR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2665