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 .
Response to Amendment
This communication is in response to the Amendment filed on 6/29/2026.
Claims 1-12 are pending.
Please note: This application is division of US Application No., 17/256,404, which is a 371 of PCT/US2019/039725, which claims benefit of provisional application 62/692350.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 6/29/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant on page 5 argues by stating:
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On page 7 of the Remarks, related to claim 1, applicant argues by stating:
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The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Examiner cited Chen’s paragraphs [0022-0026, 0038-0040, 0043-0046, and 0075-0078] in the previous rejection. Starting with Chen’s paragraph [0005], Chen states, in the summary of the invention:
[0005] A denoised image matrix is then generated with the computer by inputting the noisy image matrix to a rank-regularized optimization that iteratively minimizes a difference between a denoised image matrix and the noisy image matrix, wherein the rank-regularized optimization includes a regularization term that controls generating the denoised image matrix as a decomposition of the noisy image matrix into basis images defined by the first basis and the second basis. The denoised image matrix contains the at least one denoised image of the subject.[emphasis added].
From here it is clear that Chen discloses the limitation of “reducing noise in the multi-energy processed images by minimizing an objective function that includes spatiospectral similarity between the multi- energy processed images and the multi-energy CT image” [emphasis added]. The differences in Chen is minimized by essentially finding the similarity between the two image matrices (i.e., between the two types of images in pending claims). As disclosed at paragraph [0076], the values of the image content and noise content were plotted and compared against each other, as shown in FIG. 8. Further, paragraph [0022] of Chen discloses “an aspect of the present invention to exploit the redundant information in these images to reduce noise dramatically, which can allow for the significant reduction in radiation dose in x-ray imaging because low-noise images can be reconstructed from lower dose acquisitions that would otherwise contain a significant level of noise caused by the lower dose”. This in combination with other cited portions of the Chen’s reference teaches each limitation recited in the pending claim 1. Similar response applies to remarks related to claim 7.
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 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 2017/0221234 to Chen.
With regard to claim 1 Chen discloses method for multi-energy processing (Figures 1-2) using a computed tomography (CT) system (Figures 3A-3B, 4, and 5), the method comprising: a) imaging a subject with the CT system using at least two different energy levels to acquire CT data associated with each of the energy levels (paragraphs [0024-0027, 0031]); b) reconstructing the acquired CT data associated with each of the energy levels to produce multi-energy CT image data associated with each of the energy levels (Figure 2, step 204; paragraphs [0027, 0029, 0040-0042]); c) generating multi-energy processed images using a material decomposition method (Figure 1 step 108, paragraphs [0036-0038]); d) reducing noise in the multi-energy processed images by minimizing an objective function that includes spatiospectral similarity between the multi-energy processed images and the multi-energy CT image (paragraphs [0022-0026, 0038-0040, 0043-0046, 0075-0078]).
With regard to claim 7, claim 7 is rejected same as claim 1 and the arguments similar to that presented above for claim 1 are equally applicable to claim 7, and all of the other limitations similar to claim 1 are not repeated herein, but incorporated by reference.
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 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 of this title, 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.
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 4-6 and 10-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2017/0221234 to Chen in view of US 2018/0101948 to Yu et al. (hereafter, “Yu”).
With regard to claim 4, Chen discloses the method of claim 1. However, Chen does not expressly teach wherein the objective function is minimized iteratively using at least one of an alternating direction method of multiplier (ADMM) algorithm, a gradient descent algorithm, a primal-dual algorithm, a conjugate gradient algorithm, Newton’s method, and Quasi Newton’s method like Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno algorithm. Yu teaches wherein the objective function is minimized iteratively using at least one of an alternating direction method of multiplier (ADMM) algorithm, a gradient descent algorithm, a primal-dual algorithm, a conjugate gradient algorithm, Newton’s method, and Quasi Newton’s method like Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno algorithm (paragraphs [0078, 0086]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Chen’s reference to have one of the algorithm/methods used in objective function minimization of Yu’s reference. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to reconstruct denoised image using ADMM or FDK, as suggested by Yu at paragraph [0078].
Further, one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as described above by known method with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Yu with Chen to obtain the invention as specified in claim 4.
With regard to claim 5, Yu discloses wherein the objective function includes M materials and wherein physical constraints, chemical constraints, volume conservation or mass conservation are included in the objective function to provide for performing material decomposition on M+1 materials (paragraphs [0041, 0047, 0055-0056, 0058, 0066-0067, 0079-0080]).
With regard to claim 6, Yu discloses wherein the multi-energy processed images is selected to be at least one of a material specific image, a virtual monoenergetic image, an electron density image, an effective atomic number image, a Compton effect image, and a photoelectric effect image (paragraphs [0055-0056]).
With regard to claim 10, claim 10 is rejected same as claim 4 and the arguments similar to that presented above for claim 4 are equally applicable to claim 10, and all of the other limitations similar to claim 4 are not repeated herein, but incorporated by reference.
With regard to claim 11, claim 11 is rejected same as claim 5 and the arguments similar to that presented above for claim 5 are equally applicable to claim 11, and all of the other limitations similar to claim 5 are not repeated herein, but incorporated by reference.
With regard to claim 12, claim 12 is rejected same as claim 6 and the arguments similar to that presented above for claim 6 are equally applicable to claim 12, and all of the other limitations similar to claim 6 are not repeated herein, but incorporated by reference.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-3 and 8-9 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the cited art of record fails to disclose, suggest, or teach the limitation/feature of “at least one of linearly or non-linearly blending the multi-energy processed images with a conventional multi-energy image to achieve natural image appearance and noise texture”, recited in claims 2 and 8 and “wherein a blending parameter is selected by a user to determine a strength of the blending” in claims 3 and 9.
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 SHEFALI D. GORADIA whose telephone number is (571)272-8958. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 8AM-6PM, Friday 8AM-12PM.
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SHEFALI D. GORADIA
Primary Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2676
/SHEFALI D GORADIA/Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2676
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