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 .
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 1-21 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.
Regarding claims 1, 2, 6, 10, 11, 14, 16 18, and 19, these claims recite a/the “critical imaging parameter”. The term “critical” is a relative term which renders the claims indefinite. The term “critical” 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. For examination purposes the claims will be interpreted as a/the “imaging parameter”.
Dependent claims are also rejected due to their dependency.
Regarding claim 15, claim 15 recites “physical quantities, element poses, and target deformation are jointly estimated and updated”. However claim 1 only claims one critical imaging parameter therefore it is unclear if the physical quantities, element poses, and target deformation are critical imaging parameters. For examination purposes and in view of the rejection above each recitation of “critical imaging parameter” will be interpreted as “at least one imaging parameter” and claim 15 will be interpreted as “wherein the at least on imaging parameter includes physical quantities, element poses, and target deformation, and the physical quantities, the element poses, and the target deformation are jointly estimated and updated”.
Regarding claim 20, claim 20 recites “wherein the loss function is regularized by physical properties and constraints of transducers and an imaging target.” It is unclear if the loss function is regularized by physical properties, constraints of transducers, and an imaging target, if it is regularized by physical properties and constraints of transducers and regularized by an imaging target, or if the loss function is regularized by physical properties and constraints of transducers and regularized by physical properties and constraints of an imaging target. For examination purpose the claim will be interpreted as “the loss function is regularized by physical properties and constraints of transducers and regularized by an imaging target”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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, 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ye (US 20190355093) and further in view of Perdios (US 20210341436).
Regarding claim 1, Ye discloses a method of ultrasound imaging ([0002] – “an apparatus and a method that reconstructs an ultrasound image”) comprising:
a) performing a pulse-echo acquisition to produce channel signals using ultrasound transducers, wherein the acquisition comprises transmitting ultrasound signals using transmit elements and receiving pulse-echo responses of the transmitted ultrasound signals using receive elements ([0057] – “The receiver used to obtain the three-dimensional input image 230 may be sampled or selected from the plurality of receivers 210”, one with ordinary skill in the art would recognize a transmit element would be required for the receiver to receive the data to obtain an ultrasound image);
b) processing the transmitted and received channel signals to produce a dataset of a set of transmit elements and a set of receive elements ([0046] – “in operation 110, an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment may perform pre-processing on a three-dimensional input image”);
c) calculating an estimate of a critical imaging parameter ([0048] – “The neural network may learn the parameters associated with the two-dimensional input image”);
d) performing beamforming using the dataset and the estimate of the critical imaging parameter ([0018] – “generating includes performing beamforming on all parameters of the two-dimensional input image”);
e) calculating a desired loss function, wherein the loss function is minimized with respect to the critical imaging parameter ([0072] – “perform a supervised learning on the parameters by determining the loss function and then adjusting the parameters such that the value of the determined loss function is minimized”);
f) […] backpropagation ([0078] – “The minimization problem for performing supervised learning on the parameter θ of the neural network 530 may generally be performed through back propagation”);
g) updating the estimate of the critical imaging parameter ([0078] – “While the supervised learning is performed on the parameter θ of the neural network 530 by using the back propagation, each of the parameters of the neural network 530 may be repeatedly modified through gradient descent”);
h) repeating steps (d)-(g) […] ([0071] – “While the supervised learning is performed on the parameter θ of the neural network 530 by using the back propagation, each of the parameters of the neural network 530 may be repeatedly modified through gradient descent”);
i) generating an enhanced ultrasound image using the estimate of the critical imaging parameter ([0068] – “a three-dimensional output image 550, to which the lost information is added”, the imaging parameter was used in the neural network process).
Conversely Ye does not teach differentiating the calculated loss function with respect to the critical imaging parameter by backpropagation, and
repeating steps […] until a convergence condition is satisfied
However Perdios discloses differentiating the calculated loss function with respect to the critical imaging parameter by backpropagation ([0057] – “Assuming that F is differentiable with respect to x”, [0058] – “the cost functional F”, [0063] – “This differentiability is a key building block of its training strategy which relies on the powerful backpropagation approach”), and
repeating steps […] until a convergence condition is satisfied ([0029] – “optimisation problem is solved for instance by means of an iterative algorithm or solver until a convergence criterion is reached”).
Perdios is an analogous art considering it is in the field of ultrasound image reconstruction.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method of Ye to incorporate the repeating of steps until a convergence condition is satisfied of Perdios to achieve the same results. One would have motivation to combine because “images can be reconstructed very fast and they have a very high quality” (Perdios [0010]).
Regarding claim 14, Ye and Perdios disclose all the elements of the claimed invention as
cited in claim 1.
Ye further discloses wherein a pretrained neural network is used to produce an initial estimate of the critical imaging parameter and to update the estimate of the critical imaging parameter in at least one iteration ([0048] – “The neural network may learn the parameters associated with the two-dimensional input image”).
Claims 2-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ye (US20190355093) and Perdios (US 20210341436) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Frenz (US 20160317121).
Regarding claim 2, Ye and Perdios disclose all the elements of the claimed invention as
cited in claim 1.
Conversely Ye does not teach wherein the critical imaging parameter is slowness (i.e., the reciprocal of sound speed) defined at various locations and wherein the loss function is a common midpoint phase error, coherence factor, common-midpoint coherence factor or phase error of non-common midpoint sub-aperture pairs.
However Frenz discloses wherein the critical imaging parameter is slowness (i.e., the reciprocal of sound speed) defined at various locations and wherein the loss function is a common midpoint phase error, coherence factor, common-midpoint coherence factor or phase error of non-common midpoint sub-aperture pairs ([0037] – “the slowness distribution σ(x, z) is determined from the local echo phase shift Δτ(x, z, φ, φ0) in an iterative manner”,[0072], [0073]).
Frenz is an analogous art considering it is in the field of ultrasound image reconstruction.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method of Ye to incorporate the slowness as an imaging parameter of Frenz to achieve the same results. One would have motivation to combine because “a contrast resolution of better than 0.8% of average sound speed at a resolution of 1 mm can be achieved with the method according to the invention” (Frenz [0002]).
Regarding claim 3, Ye, Perdios, and Frenz disclose all the elements of the claimed invention as
cited in claims 1 and 2.
Conversely Ye does not teach wherein the beamforming comprises time-of-flight estimates computed by integrating the slowness along straight ray paths.
However Frenz discloses wherein the beamforming comprises time-of-flight estimates computed by integrating the slowness along straight ray paths ([0070] – “The arrival time t of the Tx pulse at the scatterer at a position (x, z) in the imaging plane is entirely determined by the line integral of the slowness (inverse of sound speed) along a straight line between the probe aperture and the scatterer”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method of Ye to incorporate the slowness as an imaging parameter of Frenz to achieve the same results. One would have motivation to combine because “a contrast resolution of better than 0.8% of average sound speed at a resolution of 1 mm can be achieved with the method according to the invention” (Frenz [0002]).
Regarding claim 4, Ye, Perdios, and Frenz disclose all the elements of the claimed invention as
cited in claims 1 and 2.
Conversely Ye does not teach wherein the beamforming comprises time-of-flight estimates computed by integrating the slowness along bent ray paths to compensate for refraction.
However Frenz discloses wherein the beamforming comprises time-of-flight estimates computed by integrating the slowness along bent ray paths to compensate for refraction ([0070] – “The arrival time t of the Tx pulse at the scatterer at a position (x, z) in the imaging plane is entirely determined by the line integral of the slowness (inverse of sound speed)”, [0037] – “the slowness distribution σ(x, z) is determined from the local echo phase shift Δτ(x, z, φ, φ0) in an iterative manner, which particularly allows one to compensate for the effect of acoustic refraction”, [0038] – “Acoustic refraction is the bending of sound rays”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method of Ye to incorporate the slowness as an imaging parameter of Frenz to achieve the same results. One would have motivation to combine because “a contrast resolution of better than 0.8% of average sound speed at a resolution of 1 mm can be achieved with the method according to the invention” (Frenz [0002]).
Claims 6-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ye (US20190355093) and Perdios (US 20210341436) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Barbosa (EP 3881770A1).
Regarding claim 6, Ye and Perdios disclose all the elements of the claimed invention as
cited in claim 1.
Conversely Ye does note teach wherein the critical imaging parameter is poses of the transmit elements and of the receive elements, and wherein the loss function is a common-midpoint phase error, phase error without common midpoint, coherence factor, common midpoint coherence factor, or image entropy.
However Barbosa discloses wherein the critical imaging parameter is poses of the transmit elements and of the receive elements, and wherein the loss function is a common-midpoint phase error, phase error without common midpoint, coherence factor, common midpoint coherence factor, or image entropy ([0330] – “minimization of B-mode image entropy”, [0357] – “the estimated location and orientation of the individual transducer elements”).
Barbosa is an analogous art considering it is in the field of ultrasound image reconstruction.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method of Ye to incorporate the pose as an imaging parameter of Barbosa to achieve the same results. One would have motivation to combine because “image reconstruction based on incorrect positional information will lead to a deformed and/or un-sharp image, i.e. an image of suboptimal quality” (Barbosa [0009]).
Regarding claim 7, Ye, Perdios, and Barbosa disclose all the elements of the claimed invention as
cited in claims 1 and 6.
Conversely Ye does note teach wherein the transmit elements and receive elements are embedded in one or more flexible transducers.
However Barbosa discloses wherein the transmit elements and receive elements are embedded in one or more flexible transducers ([0024] – “the transducer array is flexible”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method of Ye to incorporate the flexible transducer array of Barbosa to achieve the same results. One would have motivation to combine because “the system can advantageously adjust its geometry to a probe or sample surface, e.g., a patient's body” (Barbosa [0024]).
Regarding claim 8, Ye, Perdios, and Barbosa disclose all the elements of the claimed invention as
cited in claims 1 and 6.
Conversely Ye does note teach wherein the channel signals comprise multiple pulse-echo acquisitions as the transmit elements and receive elements are swept across the imaging target in any direction.
However Barbosa discloses wherein the channel signals comprise multiple pulse-echo acquisitions as the transmit elements and receive elements are swept across the imaging target in any direction ([0058] – “driver module for the switching array, may be configured to selectively switch rows and/or columns of transducer array elements to define an active sub-array and a sub-array location in a larger matrix of the system's transducer array”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method of Ye to incorporate the control of sub-arrays of Barbosa to achieve the same results. One would have motivation to combine because “the addressing of the transducer array elements can be done in a less complex way, as they will be addressed in the groups of transducer array elements which are called a sub-array” (Barbosa [0066]).
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ye (US20190355093), Perdios (US 20210341436), and Barbosa (EP 3881770) as applied to claim 6 above, and further in view of Ramamurthy (US 20230082109).
Regarding claim 9, Ye and Perdios disclose all the elements of the claimed invention as
cited in claims 1 and 6.
Conversely Ye does not teach wherein the initial estimate of element poses is obtained using motion tracking sensors.
However Ramamurthy discloses wherein the initial estimate of element poses is obtained using motion tracking sensors ([0040] – “localization sensor for determining the position and orientation of the FIG. 3A transducer element”).
Ramamurthy is an analogous art considering it is in the field of ultrasound imaging.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method of Ye to incorporate the localization sensor of Ramamurthy to achieve the same results. One would have motivation to combine because “the position and orientation of transducer element 20 may be processed by an ultrasound system to calculate the acoustic path length…After the path length is calculated, the ultrasound system may cause transducer element 20 to deliver ultrasound energy with certain phases to focus the ultrasound energy at the target region.” (Ramamurthy [0118]).
Claims 12 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ye (US20190355093) and Perdios (US 20210341436) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Kruse (US 20200284902).
Regarding claim 12, Ye and Perdios disclose all the elements of the claimed invention as
cited in claim 1.
Conversely Ye does not teach wherein the dataset comprises a full synthetic aperture acquisition.
However Kruse discloses wherein the dataset comprises a full synthetic aperture acquisition ([0067] – “partial or full synthetic transmit aperture imaging”).
Kruse is an analogous art considering it is in the field of enhancing ultrasound images.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method of Ye to incorporate the full synthetic aperture imaging of Kruse to achieve the same results. One would have motivation to combine because “fewer transmits than are required of other coded aperture schemes while still maintaining similar spatial resolution and contrast resolution” (Kruse [0067]).
Regarding claim 13, Ye and Perdios disclose all the elements of the claimed invention as
cited in claim 1.
Conversely Ye does not teach wherein the dataset comprises an incomplete synthetic aperture acquisition.
However Kruse discloses wherein the dataset comprises an incomplete synthetic aperture acquisition ([0067] – “partial or full synthetic transmit aperture imaging”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method of Ye to incorporate the incomplete synthetic aperture imaging of Kruse to achieve the same results. One would have motivation to combine because “fewer transmits than are required of other coded aperture schemes while still maintaining similar spatial resolution and contrast resolution” (Kruse [0067]).
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ye (US20190355093) and Perdios (US 20210341436) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Iguchi (US 20230017227).
Regarding claim 16, Ye and Perdios disclose all the elements of the claimed invention as
cited in claim 1.
Conversely Ye does not teach wherein a new channel data sample is acquired and used to update the estimated critical imaging parameter.
However Iguchi discloses wherein a new channel data sample is acquired and used to update the estimated critical imaging parameter ([0056] – “The server 1 sequentially inputs the medical images for training to the estimation model 141 to update the parameter”).
Iguchi is an analogous art considering it is in the field of enhancing ultrasound images.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method of Ye to incorporate the new data to update the parameter of Iguchi to achieve the same results. One would have motivation to combine because “the cause of the image defect occurring in the medical image can be suitably removed” (Iguchi [0009]).
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ye (US20190355093) and Perdios (US 20210341436) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Napolitano (US 20140378834).
Regarding claim 17, Ye and Perdios disclose all the elements of the claimed invention as
cited in claim 1.
Conversely Ye does not teach wherein the dataset is modified by downshifting to baseband via IQ demodulation.
However Napolitano discloses wherein the dataset is modified by downshifting to baseband via IQ demodulation ([0075] – “channel domain data can either be received RF, demodulated RF to IF, or demodulated to baseband IQ signals from the transducer elements”).
Napolitano is an analogous art considering it is in the field of ultrasound image reconstruction.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method of Ye to incorporate the IQ demodulation of Napolitano to achieve the same results. One would have motivation to combine because it allows for the phase information to be known.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ye (US20190355093) and Perdios (US 20210341436) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Rouet (US 20240185424).
Regarding claim 18, Ye and Perdios disclose all the elements of the claimed invention as
cited in claim 1.
Conversely Ye does not teach wherein the critical imaging parameter is embedded in the weights of a neural network where the weights act as an implicit neural representation of a physical quantity of interest.
However Rouet discloses wherein the critical imaging parameter is embedded in the weights of a neural network where the weights act as an implicit neural representation of a physical quantity of interest ([0012] – “by using PCA, the shape of the organ and the modes of deformation may be learned. This model of deformations may then be used to provide a context by which the predicted binary mask and ground-truth binary mask may be compared. The PCA loss term may be based on this comparison, and so PCA based shape learning is embedded in the learning weights of the NN.”).
Rouet is an analogous art considering it is in the field of using a neural network for image processing.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the method of Ye to incorporate the parameter being embedded in the weights of the neural network of Rouet to achieve the same results. One would have motivation to combine because “improved performance for medical image segmentation may be achieved by proposed embodiments” (Rouet [0060]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 10, 11, 15, 19-21 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RENEE C LANGHALS whose telephone number is (571)272-6258. The examiner can normally be reached Mon.-Thurs. alternate Fridays 8:30-6.
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/R.C.L./Examiner, Art Unit 3797
/CHRISTOPHER KOHARSKI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3797