DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
This is a non-final office action on the merits in response to the arguments and/or amendments filed on 13 January 2026 and the request for continued examination filed on 13 January 2026.
Claim(s) 10 and 18 is/are canceled. Claim(s) 1, 19, and 20 is/are amended.
Claim(s) 1-9, 11-17, 19 and 20 is/are currently pending and have been examined.
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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 13 January 2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-9, 11-17, 19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claim 19, which is representative of claims 1 and 20, recites: an information processing method
from a comment-on-findings group including a plurality of comments on findings, searching for a plurality of comment-on-findings candidates related to a search query that a user inputted
determining at least one combination of diagnostic information and finding information included in the comment-on-finding candidates;
determining, as preprocessing before evaluating the comment-on-findings candidates, an importance value for each combination of diagnostic information and finding information included in the comment-on-findings group including the plurality of comments on findings, the importance value being based on at least one of: a frequency with which the combination is included in the comment-on-findings group; and a degree of uniqueness with which the finding information included in the combination is not included in combinations with other diagnostic information;
evaluating each of the comment-on-findings candidates based on the importance value by referring to the importance table to obtain the importance value of the at least one combination of diagnostic information and finding information included in the comment-on-findings candidate and aggregating the importance value; and
presenting,
wherein the diagnostic information indicates an estimate disease name or an evaluation result diagnosed based on a medical image, and the finding information indicates at least one of: a type, a property, a position, a measurement value, and a number of a region of interest; a phrase expressing a change in the region of interest; or a type of diagnostic information other than the diagnostic information to be paired.
The preceding recitation of the claim has had strikethroughs applied to the additional elements beyond the abstract idea to more clearly demonstrate the limitations setting forth the abstract idea. The remaining limitations describe a concept of reviewing potential findings and suggesting findings. This concept describes a mental process that a writing assistant should follow to assist a provider generate a finding report similar to the “mental process that a neurologist should follow when testing a patient for nervous system malfunctions” given in MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II)(C) as an example of managing personal behavior in the methods of organizing human activity sub-grouping. As such, these limitation set forth a method of organizing human activity. Therefore the claims are determined to recite an abstract idea.
MPEP 2106, reflecting the 2019 PEG, directs examiners at Step 2A Prong Two to consider whether the additional elements of the claims integrate a recited abstract idea into a practical application.
Claim 1 recites the additional element of an apparatus comprising at least one processor, a display, and an input device. Claim 19 describes the method as executed by a computer. Claim 20 recites the additional element of a non-transitory computer readable medium. These additional elements are all recited at an extremely high level of generality, and are interpreted as a generic computing device used to implement the abstract idea. Per MPEP 2106.05(f), implementing an abstract idea on a generic computing device does not integrate an abstract idea into a practical application in Step 2A Prong Two, similar to how the recitation of the computer in the claim in Alice amounted to mere instructions to apply the abstract idea on a generic computer. As such, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
The claims further recite the additional elements of receiving an input via an input device and presenting information via a display. These additional elements are not significant and do not impose meaningful limits on the claim. Instead, these additional elements amount to necessary data gathering and outputting respectively. As such, these additional elements could be interpreted as insignificant extra-solution activity. However, “input device” and “display device” may be reasonably understood as parts of a generic computer. The incorporation of these limitations amounts to instructions to apply the abstract idea using a computing device. This interpretation is supported by 1) the claim only really describe an outcome of processing without details as to how anything is accomplished, and the highly generic application of the abstract idea (receive input, display data) with the computing device. As such, this additional element is considered mere instructions to implement the abstract idea with a computing device. As such, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
There are no further additional elements. When considered as a combination, the additional elements amount to mere instructions to implement the abstract idea with a computing device. Therefore the claims are determined to be directed to an abstract idea.
At Step 2B of the Mayo/Alice analysis, examiners are to consider whether the additional elements amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
As previously noted, the claims recite additional elements which may be interpreted as generic computing devices used to implement the abstract idea and elements which merely amount to instructions to implement the abstract idea with a computing device. However, per MPEP 2106.05(f), implementing an abstract idea on a generic computing does not add significantly more in Step 2B, similar to how the recitation of the computer in the claim in Alice amounted to mere instructions to apply the abstract idea on a generic computer. As such, these additional elements do not amount to significantly more. There are no further additional elements. When considered as a combination, the additional elements amount to mere instructions to implement the abstract idea with a computing device. Therefore, when considered individually and as a combination, the additional elements of the independent claims do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Thus the independent claims are not patent eligible.
Dependent claims 2-9 and 11-17 further narrow the abstract idea, but these claims also recite an abstract idea, albeit a narrowed one. Dependent claims 2-9 and 11-17 recite no further additional elements. The previously identified additional elements, individually and as a combination, do not integrate the narrowed abstract ideas into a practical application for the same reasons as identified above. As such, the dependent claims are also directed to an abstract idea. At step 2B, the previously identified additional elements, individually and as a combination, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea for the same reasons as identified above. Because the dependent claims are also directed to an abstract idea without reciting significantly more, the dependent claims are not patent eligible.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s Argument Regarding 112(b) Rejections of claims 1, 19, and 20: Claims 1, 19, and 20 have been amended.
Examiner’s Response: Applicant's amendments filed 13 January 2026 have been fully considered and they resolve the identified issue. The rejections under 112(b) are withdrawn.
Applicant’s Argument Regarding 101 Rejections of claims 1-20:
This is a concrete specification of a data structure (the importance table) and a processing pipeline (preprocessing → table storage → table-based evaluation), not an abstract statement of “evaluate information and display it.”
By requiring “as preprocessing” the determination of an importance value for each combination of diagnostic information and finding information included in the comment-on-findings group, and then requiring that the importance values be stored in an importance table that is later “referred to” when evaluating each candidate, the claims improve how a computer performs searching and ranking operations on a large corpora of medical report comments.
In particular, the claimed architecture: shifts the computationally intensive step to a designated preprocessing phase; and ensures that, at query time, the evaluation of each comment-on-findings candidate is performed by the efficient table lookup and aggregation, rather than by recomputing corpus-wide statistics for every query. This processing model, as recited in the claims, reduces the amount of computation required at query time and thereby improves the way the computer system executes search and ranking for medical report comments.
The improvement lies in the computer’s operation—specifically, in how the computer structures and precomputes information (in the importance table) and then exploits that structure for efficient evaluation of candidates.
The claimed preprocessing, importance table, and evaluation are not applied to arbitrary, generic data, but to a specific class of structured data derived from medical images.
Examiner’s Response: Applicant's arguments filed 13 January 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Examiner notes that the claims do not specify “a data structure” for the importance table. Further, the asserted “processing pipeline” is general enough that much of it is considered part of the abstract idea.
Examiner notes that the claims do not require “a large corpora of medical report comments.” Further, per MPEP 2106.05(a), “If it is asserted that the invention improves upon conventional functioning of a computer, or upon conventional technology or technological processes, a technical explanation as to how to implement the invention should be present in the specification.” Here, the disclosure does not provide any technical details of how to implement determinations “as preprocessing.” This indicates that that predetermination of data and subsequent use of data should not be considered an improvement to computer technology in 2023.
Examiner notes that the specification does not appear to recognize the asserted improvement. Specifically, the disclosure does not appear to contemplate the shifting of a “computationally intensive step” to reduce computation time. In the absence of such disclosure, one of ordinary skill in the art would not understand the disclosure to be setting forth an improvement by merely precomputing subsequently relied upon data.
Examiner notes that the human mind is capable of predetermining information and using it subsequently to improve response times. As such, predetermination of information does not appear to be a “technical solution.” Further, Examiner notes again that the claims provide no meaningful details regarding how the computer “structures” the importance table.
The findings and their context are considered part of the abstract idea, and thus the application of the abstract idea to the context of medical image data does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Further, were this element considered an additional element (which it is not), it would merely generally link the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, which per MPEP 2106.04(d) does not integrate an abstract idea into a practical application.
Applicant’s Argument Regarding 102 Rejections of Claims 1-13, 16, and 18-20 and 103 Rejections of claims 14, 15, and 17: Amended claim 1 also requires: “evaluate each of the comment-on-findings candidates based on the importance value by referring to the importance table to obtain the importance value of the at least one combination of diagnostic information and finding information included in the comment-on-findings candidates and aggregating the importance value.” Thus, the evaluation of each comment-on-findings candidates expressly performed by … aggregating those importance values. Bryce does not disclose evaluating candidate phrases in this manner.
Examiner’s Response: Applicant's arguments filed 13 January 2026 have been fully considered. The above identified argument is persuasive. Examiner agrees that Bryce and the prior art does not appear to disclose or suggest the aggregating of one or more importance values to evaluate each candidate finding. As such, the rejections under 102 and 103 are withdrawn.
Additional Considerations
The prior art made of record and not relied upon that is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure can be found in the PTO-892 of the prior office action dated 10 September 2025.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Bion A Shelden whose telephone number is (571)270-0515. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 12pm-10pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kambiz Abdi can be reached at (571) 272-6702. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Bion A Shelden/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3685 2026-04-04