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 Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 07/09/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues that D1 merely positions a regions of interest around the center of the image apparatus and does not determine the geometric center of a particular organ and that the region of interest may encompass multiple organs and therefore is not equivalent to the geometric center of an organ. However the rejection does not equate the center of D1’s overall region of interest with the claimed geometric center of an organ. Instead, D1 discloses automatically identifying and segmenting individual organs included within the broader scan region of interest using machine learning or deep learning. Therefore, even assuming that the region of interest encompasses multiple organs, D1 obtains organ specific spatial information from that region. In response to applicant’s argument that there is no discussion of determining a geometric center of an organ, the test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981). In this case, once D1 has identified and segmented the individual organ, a representative location of that organ is needed to implement D2’s teaching of calculating a target offset and automatically moving the table to align the target with the system isocenter. Using the geometric center of the segmented organ as that representative location would have been a routine and predictable implementation of the combined teachings. Applicant’s assertion that claim 1 necessarily requires the region of interest to be broader than the organ is not supported by the claim since claim 1 merely requires determining the organ’s geometric center “according to the region of interest.”
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 1-4, 17, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 (US 20230081601 A1) in view of D2 (US 20190069856 A1).
With regards to claims 1 and 17, D1 discloses an imaging apparatus comprising:
an acquisition unit, which acquires a region of interest on one more a scout images of an examination subject using a deep learning method [0053-0054]. In particular, D1 teaches automatically identifying and segmenting individual organs included within the scan region of interest based on the scout images [0054].
D1 does not explicitly teach determining a geometric center of the identified organ and automatically moving the patient table according to the organ’s geometric center and the geometric rotation center of the imaging device.
D2 teaches an imaging system, wherein in operation, a preliminary image is acquired or a region of interest [0100], and a control unit adjusts a moveable patient table to align the region of interest with the isocenter of the imaging system based on the preliminary image (see Claim 30). In particular, D2 teaches determining the position of an anatomical target from diagnostic images and automatically adjusts a moveable patient table to bring the anatomical target into alignment with the isocenter of the imaging or treatment system [0058-0060] and calculating a target offset from images obtained from different positions and moving the patient table to compensate for the calculated offset until the target is aligned with the isocenter [0099] (Claim 30).
It would have been well known, obvious, and predictably suitable to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify D1 with the teachings of D2 so that the location of an organ identified by D1 scout image region of interest is aligned with the geometric rotation center of the image device, thereby reducing positioning error and ensuring that the organ is properly located for subsequent imaging. In implementing such a modification, one of ordinary skill in the art would have needed a representative spatial location of D1’s segmented organ to compare with D2’s system isocenter. Selecting the geometric center of the segmented organ as that representative location would have been a routine and predictable choice because the geometric center provides a reproducible location derived directly from the boundaries of the segmented organ. Calculating the displacement between that organ center and the system center and moving the table to reduce the displacement would have predictable resulted in the organ being centered within the imaging device.
With regards to claim 2, D1 discloses wherein the acquisition unit acquires the region of interest from at least two scout images photographed at different angles [0052].
With regards to claim 3, D1 discloses acquiring a region of interest using a deep learning method applied to a scout image [0053]. D1 does not explicitly disclose a processing unit, which performs size transformation and/or normalization processing on the scout image of the examination subject, wherein the acquisition unit acquires the region of interest from the scout image processed by the processing unit. However, those skilled in the art recognize that deep learning base image processing often requires preprocessing of input images, including size transformation and normalization in order to match input dimensions and to scale pixel values, prior to performing inference. Therefore, it would have been well known, obvious, and predictably suitable to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify D1 with the claimed processing unit in view of the recited benefits.
With regards to claim 4, D1 discloses acquiring a region of interest using a deep learning method applied to a scout image [0053]. D1 does not explicitly disclose wherein acquiring the region of interest comprises: acquiring a bounding box for the organ of interest of the examination subject. However, those skilled in the art recognize that regions of interest identified by deep learning methods are commonly represented using bounding boxes that define the spatial extend of the detected object. Such bounding box representations are standard and routinely used to localize anatomical structures. As such, it would have been well known, obvious, and predictably suitable to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify D1 with the claimed limitation in view of the recited benefit.
With regards to claim 18, D1 does not explicitly disclose determining a reconstruction center and a display field of view of a diagnostic image of the examination subject according to the organ of interest. Nevertheless, it is well known in the art that such a method step would have been an obvious modification. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the spatial characteristics of an identified organ provide a natural basis for defining a reconstruction center and selecting an appropriate field of view for diagnostic imaging. Therefore, it would have been well known, obvious, and predictably suitable to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify D1 with the claimed method step.
Claims 5 and 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 in view of D2 and D3 (US 20190205606 A1).
With regards to claim 5, D1 discloses acquiring a region of interest using a deep learning method applied to a scout image [0053]. D1 does not explicitly disclose wherein acquiring the region of interest comprises: acquiring a contour of the organ of interest of the examination subject. D3 teaches AI based medical image segmentation (detecting boundaries of organs) and further teaches deep learning based medical image segmentation of a target anatomical structure [0004]. Therefore, D3 teaches acquiring a contour of an organ of interest. It would have been well known, obvious, and predictably suitable to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify D1 with the claimed limitation as taught by D3 in order to provide a more precise representation of the organ for localization and positioning.
With regards to claim 6, D3 teaches acquiring a contour of an organ of interest as discussed above. D3 does not explicitly teach wherein the acquisition unit further converts the contour of the organ of interest, to obtain a bounding box for the organ of interest. However, it is well known in the art that once a contour of an object is obtained, a bounding box that encloses the contour may be determined to simplify object localization on processing. Therefore, it would have been well known, obvious, and predictably suitable to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify the combination of D1-D3 in view of the recited benefits.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7-16 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
None of the prior art teach wherein the geometric center of the organ of interest of the examination subject is a line obtained by intersecting a tangent plane of a center line of a first bounding box obtained from a first scout image of the examination subject with a tangent plane of a center line of a second bounding box obtained from a second scout image of the examination subject; or a second determination unit, which determines, according to a preset relationship between a height of the patient table and an allowable movement range and a determined distance between the geometric center of the organ of interest and the geometric rotation center of the medical imaging device, whether movement of the patient table exceeds an allowable movement limit in combination with the other claimed limitations.
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 MARCUS H TANINGCO whose telephone number is (571)272-1848. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9am-6pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Uzma Alam can be reached on 571-272-3995. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MARCUS H TANINGCO/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2884
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