DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, or 365(c) is acknowledged.
Oath/Declaration
Oath/Declaration as filed on October 2, 2024 is noted by the Examiner.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
The claim recites limitation “the original resolution image” in fourth line of the claim, but there is insufficient antecedent basis for the above limitations in the claims because the claim uses term “the original resolution image” for a first time without previously reciting the term in the claim. Therefore, Examiner suggests the limitations should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that resolves the antecedent basis issues. Accordingly, any claims dependent on claim 1 are objected to based on same above reasoning.
Claim 4 is objected to because of the following informalities:
The claim recites limitations “the original resolution image” in fourth line of the claim, and “the original/target resolution” in thirteenth and sixteenth lines of the claim, but there is insufficient antecedent basis for the above limitations in the claims because the claim uses terms “the original resolution image” and “the original/target resolution” for a first time without previously reciting the terms in the claim. Therefore, Examiner suggests the limitations should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that resolves the antecedent basis issues. In addition, the term “if” in the thirteenth line of the claim renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the action(s) based on the “if” condition ever occur. See MPEP § 2173.05(h)(II). For the purposes of furthering examination, Examiner suggests the term “if”, in the thirteenth line of the claim, should be changed to reasonably acceptable language that positively recites limitations in a manner that more clearly defines the scope of the action(s). Accordingly, any claims dependent on claim 4 are objected to based on same above reasoning.
Claim 7 is objected to because of the following informalities:
The claim recites limitation terms “a digital scintigraphic image”, “a pixel interpolation”, “a pixel interpolation algorithm”, “Poisson resampling”, and “an upscaled image” in third thru tenth lines of the claim, but it’s not exactly clear whether the limitation terms are referring to same terms previously recited, or to different terms. In addition, the claim recites limitation term “the digital image” in fourth line of the claim, but it’s not exactly clear whether the limitations term are referring to same digital scintigraphic image recited in second line of claim 1, or same digital scintigraphic image recited in third line of claim 7. Therefore, Examiner suggests the limitation terms should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that clarifies exactly what the limitation terms are referring to. Also, the claim recites limitations “the original resolution image” in third line of the claim, and “the original/target resolution” in fourteenth line of the claim, but there is insufficient antecedent basis for the above limitations in the claims because the claim uses terms “the original resolution image” and “the original/target resolution” for a first time without previously reciting the terms in the claim. Therefore, Examiner suggests the limitations should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that resolves the antecedent basis issues. In addition, the term “if” in the fourteenth line of the claim renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the action(s) based on the “if” condition ever occur. See MPEP § 2173.05(h)(II). For the purposes of furthering examination, Examiner suggests the term “if”, in the fourteenth line of the claim, should be changed to reasonably acceptable language that positively recites limitations in a manner that more clearly defines the scope of the action(s). Still in addition, in regard to claim 7, the phrase “can be” recited in fifteenth line of the claim renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the limitation(s) following the phrase are part of the claimed invention. See MPEP § 2173.05(d). Accordingly, any claims dependent on claim 7 are objected to based on same above reasoning.
Claim 12 is objected to because of the following informalities:
The claim recites limitations “the original/target resolution” in first line of the claim, and “the original/target resolution ratio” in third line of the claim, but there is insufficient antecedent basis for the above limitations in the claims because the claim uses terms “the original/target resolution” and “the original/target resolution ration” for a first time without previously reciting the terms in the claim 12 or in a claim from which the claim 12 depends. Therefore, Examiner suggests the limitations should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that resolves the antecedent basis issues. In addition, the term “if” in the fourteenth line of the claim renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the action(s) based on the “if” condition ever occur. See MPEP § 2173.05(h)(II). For the purposes of furthering examination, Examiner suggests the term “if”, in the fourteenth line of the claim, should be changed to reasonably acceptable language that positively recites limitations in a manner that more clearly defines the scope of the action(s). Still in addition, in regard to claim 7, the phrase “can be” recited in fifteenth line of the claim renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the limitation(s) following the phrase are part of the claimed invention. See MPEP § 2173.05(d).
Claim 13 is objected to because of the following informalities:
In particular, limitation terms “a simulated low count image”, “a low count image”, “trained generator”, “image count enhancement”, and “a predicted simulated full count image” recited in second thru sixth line of the claim, renders the claim indefinite, because the meaning of the coined terms “a simulate low count image”, “a low count image”, “trained generator”, “image count enhancement”, and “a predicted simulated full count image” are not apparent in light of the specification. See MPEP § 2173.05(a). Examiner recommends applicant amend the claim, without adding new matter, to positively recite in definite terms more clearly what “a simulate low count image”, “a low count image”, “trained generator”, “image count enhancement”, and “a predicted simulated full count image” actually are. Accordingly, any claims dependent on claim 13 are objected to based on same above reasoning.
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.
Claim 1 is 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. In particular, claim 1 recites limitation terms “the photon” in sixth line of the claim, “the ratio” in sixth thru seventh lines of the claim, and “the target/original pixel/voxel areas/volumes” in the seventh line of the claim but the limitation terms are unclear at least because there is insufficient antecedent basis for the above limitation terms in the claim given that the claim uses the limitation terms for a first time without previously reciting the limitation terms in the claim, which even further creates lack of clarity in regard to exactly what the limitation terms are referring to. Therefore, Examiner suggests the limitations should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that resolves the antecedent basis issues. In addition, the limitation “the ratio of the target/original pixel/voxel areas/volumes” in sixth thru seventh lines of the claim is indefinite, because it is unclear exactly what ratio is being referred to. Therefore, Examiner further suggests the limitation should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that clarifies exactly what ratio is being referred to. Accordingly, any claims dependent on claim 1 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, based on same above reasoning.
Claim 4 is 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. In particular, claim 4 recites limitation terms “the photon” in sixth line of the claim, “the ratio” in sixth thru seventh, eleventh, and thirteenth lines of the claim, “the target/original pixel/voxel areas/volumes” in the seventh line of the claim, “the photon counts” in tenth line of the claim, “the resulting image” in eighth and tenth lines of the claim, “the pixel/voxel areas/volumes of images” in the eleventh line of the claim, “the original image” in fourteenth thru fifteenth lines of the claim, “the target image” in the fifteenth line and eighteenth line of the claim, and “the nearest integer” in seventeenth line of the claim but the limitation terms are unclear at least because there is insufficient antecedent basis for the above limitation terms in the claim given that the claim uses the limitation terms for a first time without previously reciting the limitation terms in the claim, which even further creates lack of clarity in regard to exactly what the limitation terms are referring to. Therefore, Examiner suggests the limitations should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that resolves the antecedent basis issues. In addition, the limitations “the ratio of the target/original pixel/voxel areas/volumes” in sixth thru seventh lines of the claim, and “the ratio of the pixel/voxel areas/volumes of images” in the eleventh line of the claim are indefinite, because it is unclear exactly what each ratio is referring to. Therefore, Examiner further suggests the limitation should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that clarifies exactly what ratios are being referred to. Accordingly, any claims dependent on claim 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, based on same above reasoning.
Claim 7 is 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. In particular, claim 7 recites limitation terms “the photon” in seventh line of the claim, “the ratio” in seventh thru eighth, twelfth, and fourteenth lines of the claim, “the target/original pixel/voxel areas/volumes” in the eighth line of the claim, “the photon counts” in the eleventh line of the claim, “the resulting image” in ninth and the eleventh lines of the claim, “the pixel/voxel areas/volumes of images” in the twelfth line of the claim, and “the original image” and “the target image” in sixteenth line of the claim but the limitation terms are unclear at least because there is insufficient antecedent basis for the above limitation terms in the claim given that the claim uses the limitation terms for a first time without previously reciting the limitation terms in the claim, which even further creates lack of clarity in regard to exactly what the limitation terms are referring to. Therefore, Examiner suggests the limitations should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that resolves the antecedent basis issues. In addition, the limitations “the ratio of the target/original pixel/voxel areas/volumes” in the eighth line of the claim, and “the ratio of the pixel/voxel areas/volumes of images” in the twelfth line of the claim are indefinite, because it is unclear exactly what each ratio is referring to. Therefore, Examiner further suggests the limitation should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that clarifies exactly what ratios are being referred to. Accordingly, any claims dependent on claim 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, based on same above reasoning.
Claim 10 is 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. In particular, claim 10 recites limitation term “the preprocessing step” in first line of the claim but the limitation term is unclear at least because there is insufficient antecedent basis for the above limitation term in the claim given that the claim uses the limitation term for a first time without previously reciting the limitation term in the claim 10 or in a claim from which the claim 10 depends, which even further creates lack of clarity in regard to exactly what the limitation term is referring to. Therefore, Examiner suggests the limitations should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that resolves the antecedent basis issue.
Claim 12 is 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. In particular, claim 12 recites limitation terms “the ratio” in first and third lines of the claim, and “the nearest integer” in second line of the claim but the limitation terms are unclear at least because there is insufficient antecedent basis for the above limitation terms in the claim given that the claim uses the limitation terms for a first time without previously reciting the limitation terms in the claim 12 or a claim from which the claim 12 depends, which even further creates lack of clarity in regard to exactly what the limitation terms are referring to. Therefore, Examiner suggests the limitations should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that resolves the antecedent basis issues.
Claim 14 is 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. In particular, claim 14 recites limitation “wherein the simulated low count input image that were generated from diagnostic quality images with 10% of the counts using Poisson resampling” in first thru second lines of the claim is indefinite, because it’s unclear as to what exactly was generated. Therefore, Examiner suggests the limitations should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that clarifies what exactly was generated.
Claim 18 is 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. In particular, claim 18 recites limitation term “the image generation process” in second line of the claim but the limitation term is unclear at least because there is insufficient antecedent basis for the above limitation term in the claim given that the claim uses the limitation term for a first time without previously reciting the limitation term in the claim 18 or in a claim from which the claim 18 depends, which even further creates lack of clarity in regard to exactly what the limitation term is referring to. Therefore, Examiner suggests the limitations should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that resolves the antecedent basis issue.
Claim 19 is 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. In particular, claim 19 recites limitation term “the ground truth target diagnostic quality images” in second line of the claim but the limitation term is unclear at least because there is insufficient antecedent basis for the above limitation term in the claim given that the claim uses the limitation term for a first time without previously reciting the limitation term in the claim 19 or in a claim from which the claim 19 depends, which even further creates lack of clarity in regard to exactly what the limitation term is referring to. Therefore, Examiner suggests the limitations should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that resolves the antecedent basis issue.
Claim 20 is 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. In particular, claim 20 recites limitation term “the dose” in first line of the claim but the limitation term is unclear at least because there is insufficient antecedent basis for the above limitation term in the claim given that the claim uses the limitation term for a first time without previously reciting the limitation term in the claim 20 or in a claim from which the claim 20 depends, which even further creates lack of clarity in regard to exactly what the limitation term is referring to. Therefore, Examiner suggests the limitations should be amended, without adding new matter, in a manner that resolves the antecedent basis issue.
Potentially Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 4, and 13 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome applicable rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ) 2nd paragraph, if any, and objection(s) indicated above, because for each of the claims the prior art references of record do not teach the combination of all element limitations as presently claimed. For example, in regard to claim 1, the prior art of record at least does not expressly teach concept of d. correcting the photon and noise characteristics through Poisson resampling using the ratio of the target/original pixel/voxel areas/volumes. For example, in regard to claim 4, the prior art of record at least does not expressly teach concept of d. correcting the photon and noise characteristics through Poisson resampling using the ratio of the target/original pixel/voxel areas/volumes; e. up-scaling the resulting image from (d) to the target resolution using a pixel interpolation algorithm to create an upscaled image at the target resolution; and f. correcting the photon counts and noise characteristics of the resulting image from (e) using Poisson resampling using the ratio of the pixel/voxel areas/volumes of images (e) and (d); wherein if the ratio of the original / target resolution is an integer value for all directions, then a sliding window of integer size original/target resolution ratio is used to sum counts along the original image to produce the target image; and wherein if the ratio of the original/target resolution is a non-integer value for any direction, then a sliding window is made by rounding up to the nearest integer of the ratio of the original/target resolution ratio to produce an image smaller than the target image. Still for example, in regard to claim 13, the prior art of record at least does not expressly teach concept of
a. generating a simulated low count image from target diagnostic quality using Poisson resampling; b. inputting a low count image into a trained generator for image count enhancement; c. training the generator using machine learning algorithm; and d. the generator outputting a predicted simulated full count image. In addition, claims 2-3, 5-12, and 14-20 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome applicable rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ) 2nd paragraph, if any, and objection(s) indicated above because for each of claims 2-3, 5-12, and 14-20, at least in light of their dependency on their respective independent claim, the prior art references of record do not teach the combination of all element limitations as presently claimed.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure and include the following:
Taerum et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication 2020/0085382 A1 (hereinafter Taerum) teaches an automated end-to-end pipeline for accurate lesion detection and segmentation.
Hu et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication 2022/0130079 A1 (hereinafter Hu) teaches medical diagnostic systems and, more particularly, to training and using a neural network for reconstructing images from low-dose positron emission tomography (PET) data.
Sehnert et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication 2023/0306657 A1 (hereinafter Sehnert) teaches a method for noise suppression in digital X-ray images.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ABDUL-SAMAD A ADEDIRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3128. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Thursday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Amr Awad can be reached on 571-272-7764. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ABDUL-SAMAD A ADEDIRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2621
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