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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election of claims 1-12 in the reply filed on 26 July 2026 is acknowledged. Because applicant did not distinctly and specifically point out the supposed errors in the restriction requirement with the claims as the claims were at the time of the restriction requirement, the election has been treated as an election without traverse (MPEP § 818.01(a)). Applicant amended claim 13 and argued the claim should be examined with the elected invention. However, traversal must be made with respect to the claims at the time of the restriction requirement. Absent proper traverse, claim 13 remains withdrawn, and will be considered for rejoinder when appropriate.
Response to Amendment
Examiner acknowledges the amendment filed 26 July 2026.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. § 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f):
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. § 112(f). The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. § 112(f). The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f), except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 § U.S.C. 112(f) except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f), it/they is/are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f), Applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f).
Claim 1
Claim 1 is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f).
Regarding claim 1, the limitation “storage device” uses the generic placeholder “device” that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function, and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Accordingly, this limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) as corresponding to a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a solid-state drive, a flash drive, a floppy disk, a memory card, a zip disk, magnetic tape, random-access memory (RAM), or read-only memory (ROM; Applicant’s specification, ¶ 59) and equivalents thereof. Regarding the interpretations of claims using generic placeholders, see MPEP § 2181(I)(A).
Claim Rejections — 35 U.S.C. § 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.
Claim 2
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim 2
Regarding claim 2, the term “basic” is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “basic” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. See MPEP § 2173.05(b). Paragraph 142 of Applicant’s specification provides examples of basic information (“e.g., a height, a weight, an age, a gender, etc.”), but not an express definition. Examiner has considered the claimed basic information to be a height, a weight, an age, or a gender.
Claim Rejections — 35 U.S.C. § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102–-----103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102–103) 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.
Claims 1-12 and 21-27
Claims 1-12 and 21-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wang (US 2014/0095106 A1).
Claim 1
Regarding claim 1, Wang discloses a system (PET/CT system 400) for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, comprising: at least one storage device (410: an optical disk (CD-ROM, DVD), a flash drive, random-access memory (RAM), or read-only memory (ROM)) storing a set of instructions; and at least one processor (405) in communication with the at least one storage device (410), wherein when the at least one processor (405) executes the set of instructions, the system (400) is caused to perform operations (¶¶ 19, 32-40, Figs. 3-4) including:
determining a field of view (FOV) of a PET scanner based on a region of interest (ROI) of an object (¶ 19: “a method of determining a PET coincidence window for imaging a region of interest of an object using a combined Positron Emission Tomography (PET)-Computed Tomography (CT) scanner, the method comprising: (1) setting a CT field of view (FOV) based on a size of the region of interest of the object; (2) setting a diameter of a transverse FOV for PET imaging to be equal to the set CT field of view and (3) calculating the PET coincidence window based on the determined diameter, a ring diameter of the PET scanner, an axial length of the PET scanner, and a time-of-flight resolution of the PET scanner”);
obtaining photon information of photons that are emitted from the object and detected by detector units of a detector of the PET scanner (inherent to PET; see also ¶¶ 1-4);
determining, based on the FOV, at least one coincidence window width value of the PET scanner (¶ 19); and
determining coincidence events of the photons based on the at least one coincidence window width value and the photon information (¶ 19; for more detail, see ¶¶ 1-7, 13-40, Figs. 1-4).
For reference, Examiner notes Wang discloses:
[0007] A problem with conventional PET scanners is that the predetermined whole-body FOV is inadequate for the entire range of patients having different sex, age, body type, and size. Moreover, since an associated CT scan is typically used to obtain the anatomical information of a patient, the different FOV settings used for CT should be adopted for PET. However, using the same fixed coincidence window for different FOVs in PET is inadequate since a large coincidence window for a small FOV increases random coincidences in the prompt data, which degrades the image quality and quantification.
[0013] Embodiments described herein relate to a new method of determining a coincidence window based on the set FOV for a PET scanner.
[0014] In particular, the same FOV settings that are supported in an associated CT scanner are also supported by the corresponding PET scanner in a PET/CT system. Moreover, each PET FOV has a corresponding optimal coincidence window size. The coincidence window is determined by the largest time-of-flight difference for the longest oblique line-of-response (LOR) with an emission point located at an edge of the FOV, taking into account the measurement uncertainty in the time-of-flight difference. Thus, the optimal coincidence window size depends on the PET scanner's transverse FOV, axial length, and also on the PET scanner's time-of-flight resolution.
The identification of the problems with using the same coincidence window for different FOVs is similar to that described in Applicant’s specification:
[0004] Photons may travel nearly at the speed of light. The photons that are generated in a positron and an electron annihilation transmitting from the body may be detected at almost the same time. A tiny difference between the times when the two photons are detected may depend on the location of the annihilation position on the LOR. During a process for determining a coincidence event, when a first detector unit detects a first photon, a coincidence time window may be set for the other photon. The coincidence time window is a concept of a time range. If a second detector unit connected by the LOR corresponding to the first photon receives a second photon within the coincidence time window, the first and the second photons may be reference as from the same annihilation event, and a valid coincidence event is recorded. In the prior art, for a PET imaging system, a uniform coincidence time window is usually set for all LORs in a PET system according to the longest LOR of the PET system. However, for shorter LORs detected in the PET system, the uniform coincidence time window may be too large, which results in errors in determining the coincidence events and reduced imaging quality. Therefore, it is desirable to provide systems and/or methods for determining several coincidence time windows to improve the accuracy of determining coincidence events.
As described above, Wang discloses the claimed solution of adjusting the coincidence window based on the FOV. Accordingly, adjusting the coincidence window based on FOV is not new, so any potential patentability would necessarily lie in improvements thereof.
Claim 2
Regarding claim 2, Wang discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the FOV is determined based on at least one of basic information (¶ 7: sex, age, body type, size) of the object, a size of the ROI (¶ 19: “based on a size of the region of interest of the object”), or a body part (brain) corresponding to the ROI (¶ 5).
Claim 3
Regarding claim 3, Wang discloses the system of claim 1, wherein determining, based on the FOV, the at least one coincidence window width value of the PET scanner includes:
determining more than one coincidence window width value of the PET scanner based on the photon information, target lines of response (LORs) corresponding to the photons, and the FOV, each of the target LORs corresponding to one of the more than one coincidence window width value (¶¶ 13-31).
Claim 4
Regarding claim 4, Wang discloses the system of claim 3, wherein the coincidence window width value of the target LOR is determined based on a length of a segment of the target LOR in the FOV, and the segment of the target LOR in the FOV refers to a portion of the target LOR between two intersections of the target LOR with a periphery of the FOV (¶¶ 13-31).
Claim 5
Regarding claim 5, Wang discloses the system of claim 4, wherein the length of the segment of the target LOR in the FOV is determined by: determining location information of the FOV and the target LOR; determining coordinates of the two intersections based on the location information of the FOV and the target LOR; and determining the length of the segment of the target LOR in the FOV based on the coordinates of the two intersections (¶¶ 13-31).
Claim 6
Regarding claim 6, Wang discloses the system of claim 4, wherein determining the more than one coincidence window width value of the PET scanner based on the photon information, target lines of response (LORs) corresponding to the photons, and the FOV includes: obtaining a mapping relationship corresponding to the FOV between the coincidence window width values and the target LORs; and determining the more than one coincidence window width value by consulting the mapping relationship based on the target LORs (¶¶ 13-31).
Claim 7
Regarding claim 7, Wang discloses the system of claim 6, wherein obtaining the mapping relationship between the coincidence window width values and the lengths of the segments of the target LORs in the FOV includes: before a scan of the ROI, generating the mapping relationship based on the FOV (¶¶ 13-31).
Claim 8
Regarding claim 8, Wang discloses the system of claim 6, wherein obtaining the mapping relationship corresponding to the FOV between the coincidence window width values and the target LORs includes: obtaining a plurality of candidate LORs related to all of the detector units of the detector; for each of the plurality of candidate LORs, determining a length of a segment of the candidate LOR in the FOV; determining a coincidence window width value corresponding to the candidate LOR based on the length of the segment of the candidate LOR in the FOV; and generating the mapping relationship based on the coincidence window width values corresponding to the plurality of candidate LORs (¶¶ 13-31).
Claim 9
Regarding claim 9, Wang discloses the system of claim 4, wherein the coincidence window width value corresponding to the target LOR is determined based on the length of the segment of the target LOR in the FOV and a speed of light (¶¶ 13-31).
Claim 10
Regarding claim 10, Wang discloses the system of claim 4, wherein the coincidence window width value corresponding to the target LOR is determined based further on a coincidence temporal resolution of the PET scanner (¶¶ 13-31).
Claim 11
Regarding claim 11, Wang discloses the system of claim 1, wherein when the at least one processor executes the set of instructions, the system is caused to perform operations including: generating an image of the object based on the determined coincidence events (inherent to PET; see also ¶¶ 2-4).
Claim 12
Regarding claim 12, Wang discloses the system of claim 1, wherein determining, based on the FOV, the at least one coincidence window width value of the PET scanner includes: obtaining a mapping relationship between the at least one coincidence window width value and the FOV; and determining the at least one coincidence window width value by consulting the mapping relationship based on the FOV (¶¶ 13-31).
Claim 21
Regarding claim 21, Wang discloses the system of claim 1, wherein fields of view (FOVs) with different sizes, or different shapes, or different positions, or corresponding to different body portions correspond to different coincidence window width values (¶¶ 13-31).
Claim 22
Regarding claim 22, Wang discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the larger a size of the FOV, the larger the at least one coincidence window width value (¶¶ 13-31).
Claim 23
Regarding claim 23, Wang discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the determining, based on the FOV, at least one coincidence window width value of the PET scanner includes: in response to a volume of the FOV being less than or equal to a first threshold, determining the at least one coincidence window width value as a first value; in response to the volume of the FOV being greater than the first threshold and less than a second threshold, determining the at least one coincidence window width value as a second value; and in response to the volume of the FOV being greater than or equal to the second threshold, determining the at least one coincidence window width value as a third value, wherein the first value, the second value, and the third value are different (¶¶ 13-31, for the different size thresholds shown in Tables 1-2).
Claim 24
Regarding claim 24, Wang discloses the system of claim 1, wherein if a first FOV and a second FOV have the same shape, sizes of the first FOV and the second FOV are with the same preset size range, and positions of the first FOV and the second FOV are within the same preset position range, the first FOV and the second FOV correspond to the same coincidence window width value (¶¶ 13-31).
Claim 25
Regarding claim 25, Wang discloses the system of claim 1, wherein for two different regions of interest (ROls) corresponding to different FOVs, the same target LOR corresponds to different coincidence window width values (¶¶ 13-31).
Claim 26
Regarding claim 26, see the rejection of claim 1 above, mutatis mutandis.
Claim 27
Regarding claim 27, see the rejection of claim 12 above, mutatis mutandis.
Other Pertinent Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Conti (US 2007/0106154) discloses a system for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, comprising: at least one processor, wherein when the at least one processor executes a set of instructions, the system is caused to perform operations including: obtaining photon information of photons (gamma photons) that are emitted from an object (patient) and detected by detector units (PET detectors, which inherently comprise a scintillator and a photodetector) of a detector of a PET scanner; obtaining, based on the photon information and lines of response (LORs), more than one coincidence window width value of the PET scanner (claim 1: "for each line of response connecting a pair of oppositely disposed PET detectors, calculating a time coincidence window based on an intersection of said described spatial location with said line"); and determining coincidence events of the photons based on the more than one coincidence window width value (¶¶ 2-7, 21-31; Figs. 1-2; claims 1 and 12-13).
Watson (US 2009/0072155 A1) discloses aa method of reducing a field of view of a TOF-PET scanner, comprising restricting generation of TOF-PET projection data to only TOF bins that contribute data to a specific region of interest smaller than a full field of view of said TOF-PET scanner (claim 9).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BLAKE RIDDICK whose telephone number is (571)270-1865. The examiner can normally be reached M - Th 6:30 am - 5:00 pm ET, with flexible scheduling.
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Blake C. Riddick, Ph.D.
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2884
/BLAKE C RIDDICK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2884
