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 .
Allowable Subject Matter
The indicated allowability of claims 1-5 is withdrawn in view of the newly discovered reference(s) to Kruse. Rejections based on the newly cited reference(s) follow.
Response to Amendment
Claims 1-5, 7-14, and 16-21 remain pending, with claims 7-14 and 16-21 withdrawn, in the application in response to the applicant’s amendments to the rejections previously set forth in the Non-Final Office Action mailed 12/18/2025.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 02/15/2026 with respect to claim(s) 1 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.
Given the amendments to claim 1, reference to Kruse is being relied upon to teach dependent claims 2-5 more-consistently with the instant claim language, as shown below.
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 1-5 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.
For claim 1, it is unclear what “x” represents in the equations. For the purpose of advancing prosecution, the examiner assumes x is a position of a transmit focus beam.
For claim 1, “the sound waves arrive at a focal point at different times but within a predetermined time difference, the predetermined time difference being the same as the transmitter time delays” is indefinite. It is unclear if the “predetermined time difference” is one value or a range of values in order for a transmitter time delay to be within a predetermined time difference (range) and a predetermined time difference to be same as a transmitter time delay (one value). For the purpose of advancing prosecution, the examiner assumes a predetermined time difference is a transmitter time delay.
Claims 2-5 are dependent of claim 1, and therefore rejected under these 112(b) rejections as well.
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.
Claims 1-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kruse et al. (US 20240090867 A1, published March 21, 2024 with a priority date of October 8, 2015), hereinafter referred to as Kruse.
Regarding claim 1, Kruse teaches a method of acquiring ultrasound radio-frequency (RF) data using focusing beams, comprising:
utilizing an ultrasound transducer, the ultrasound transducer including a plurality of elements acting as both transmitters and receivers (see para. 0113 – “In some embodiments, the receive aperture includes one or more elements centered or approximately centered with the transmit aperture, as depicted in FIG. 5H.”);
transmitting sound waves from the transmitters of the ultrasound transducer within a transmit aperture with transmitter time delays being programed in such a way that the sound waves focus towards a focal zone, and the sound waves arrive at a focal point at different times but within a predetermined time difference, the predetermined time difference being the same as the transmitter time delays and being calculated by Equations (6a) and (6b) (see para. 0107 – “In some embodiments, transmission is enabled on one or more transducer elements, preferably, in the case of more than one element, a contiguous group of elements, with electronic delays assigned to each to form a single focused acoustic beam, i.e., a real beam. FIG. 5E illustrates an example of such a configuration in which transmission is enabled on a contiguous group of elements.”); and
receiving the sound waves using the receivers of the ultrasound transducer, wherein the sound waves are focusing beams (see para. 0105 – “focus acoustic energy both on transmission and reception along specific directions or radial vectors defined by the vectors pointing from the center of the element to the geometric center of the circular array.”);
wherein the Equations (6a) and (6b) (the claim does not recite any ranges/constraints of the parameters, or how the parameters of the equations are determined, so under broadest reasonable interpretation, the equations would fall under any standard determination of transmitter delay beamforming technique) are as follows:
f
x
s
-
x
c
=
x
s
-
x
c
c
g
x
s
-
x
c
2
Δ
x
2
(6a)
and
g
x
=
γ
sin
α
2
π
N
T
x
(6b)
where xc is a center of the transmit aperture (see para. 0111 – “In some embodiments, the real transmit beam may be arbitrarily fired from any contiguous group of elements with the virtual center of the transmit aperture…”),
xs is a position of the transmitter (see para. 0147 – “…6DoF coordinate information about the transducer locations…”),
c is a sound speed used in setting the transmitter delay (see para. 0138 – “A complete cycle of such transmissions and receptions comprises a transmission tomographic dataset from which sound speed and attenuation may be estimated and used for refining beamformer delays on both transmission and reception.”),
Δx is a pitch size of the ultrasound transducer (see para. 0106 – “Generally, the pitch or spacing of the elements must be limited in order to reduce or eliminate the potential for grating lobes on either transmission or reception in either real beam or synthetic aperture operation when steering is required in beam formation.”),
NT is a number of the transmitters of the ultrasound transducer within the transmit aperture (see para. 0116 – “… the number of elements involved in a transmission…”),
γ is a magnitude of an oscillation of the transmitter time delays (see para. 0116 – “…the transmission amplitudes for each element…”) and
α is a period of the oscillation (see para. 0142 – “…waveforms can be transmitted with a pulse-repetition-frequency (PRF) ranging arbitrarily up to about 100 kHz…”);
wherein a processing unit contains a central processing unit (CPU), the CPU sends instructions to the ultrasound transducer to transmit the sound waves to the elements of the ultrasound transducer within the transmit aperture with the transmitter time delays that are specially designed for the focusing beams (Fig. 1E; see para. 0061 – “The TREM 110E includes a data processing unit (e.g., processor or microcontroller, and memory) is configured to transfer data with a central processing unit (CPU) of the computer 130E, e.g., such as executable instructions on waveform synthesis or probe control, and/or acquired or processed data.”); and
wherein the processing unit is configured to calculate the predetermined time difference by the Equations (6a) and (6b) (see para. 0107 – “In some embodiments, transmission is enabled on one or more transducer elements, preferably, in the case of more than one element, a contiguous group of elements, with electronic delays assigned to each to form a single focused acoustic beam, i.e., a real beam. FIG. 5E illustrates an example of such a configuration in which transmission is enabled on a contiguous group of elements.” the predetermined time difference is a transmitter time delay, so estimating the transmitter time delay is the same as calculating a predetermined time difference).
Furthermore, regarding claim 2, Kruse further teaches providing another ultrasound transducer including a plurality of elements acting as receivers; and receiving the sound waves using the receivers of the another ultrasound transducer (see para. 0117 – “This can be seen with from the example diagram in FIG. 5I, where f-number of 1 is maintained for two focal points that are at 1 cm and 3 cm, respectively, from the transmit/receive apertures on two sides of the array.”).
Furthermore, regarding claim 3, Kruse further teaches wherein the ultrasound transducer is a linear transducer, a curved transducer, or a matrix array transducer (see para. 0103 – “Different transducer array configurations and geometries may be envisioned. Arrays may include hundreds or thousands of elements arranged in a circular or ellipsoidal or curved aperture that is either open or closed. For example, instead of using a single element to focus an acoustic beam, focusing may be achieved using suitably delayed transmissions from several small transducers elements arranged in one or more 1D, 1.25D, 1.5D, 1.75D, 2D, or 3D linear or phased arrays, as consistent with the current state-of-the-art in clinical ultrasound scanners.”).
Furthermore, regarding claim 4, Kruse further teaches wherein after the transmitters of the ultrasound transducer are turned off, the receivers of the ultrasound transducer are turned on with or without any time delay (see para. 0140 – “Acoustic (e.g., ultrasound) pulses are transmitted from the plurality of acoustic transducer elements 111 of the structure 110, e.g., including sequentially one-at-a-time, simultaneously, or in a time-staggered or time-delayed pattern. Each transmission is accompanied by receptions of acoustic echoes on one or more of the transducer elements 111 corresponding to a single transmission.” inherent for an array of transceivers).
Furthermore, regarding claim 5, Kruse further teaches wherein the receivers of the another ultrasound transducer are turned on regardless of the transmitters of the ultrasound transducer are on or off (see para. 0117 – “This can be seen with from the example diagram in FIG. 5I, where f-number of 1 is maintained for two focal points that are at 1 cm and 3 cm, respectively, from the transmit/receive apertures on two sides of the array.”).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Angelsen et al. (US 20130279294 A1, published October 24, 2013) discloses obtaining the nonlinear propagation delay and pulse form distortion for the forward propagating HF pulse at multiple depths through simulation of a nonlinear wave equation for the forward propagating HF pulse with the actual transmitted LF/HF pulse complex and defined object material parameters.
Haque et al. (US 20210293952 A1, published September 23, 2021 with a priority date of January 15, 2019) discloses the transmit delays can be calculated based on speed of sound in the propagating medium, the focal point on transmit, the transducer row position, the center of the array, amplitude of a transmit pressure wave, the number of elements, and pulse frequency.
Li (US 6120450 A, published September 19, 2000) discloses dynamic near-field delay correction as a function of center element index, total number of transducer elements in transducer array, pitch of the array, acoustic wave propagation velocity in the medium.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Nyrobi Celestine whose telephone number is 571-272-0129. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Thursday, 7:00AM - 5:00PM EST.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Pascal Bui-Pho can be reached on 571-272-2714. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see https://ppair-my.uspto.gov/pair/PrivatePair. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/N.C./Examiner, Art Unit 3798
Prosecution Insights