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
Claims 12-29 withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 12/8/2025.
Claim Objections
Claims 4-5 and 8 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In claims 4-5 and 8 “number” should be changed to “a number” for grammar.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 (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 1-4 and 9-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Zhou et al. (US20250099080, hereafter Zhou).
Regarding claims 1 and 10-11, Zhou discloses an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus and method and imaging processing apparatus (Zhou, Para 5; “Systems and methods to suppress interference artifacts in ultrasound systems are described. In some embodiments, an ultrasound system includes an ultrasound scanner configured to transmit ultrasound at a patient anatomy and receive reflections of the ultrasound from the patient anatomy. The ultrasound system also includes an ultrasound machine configured to generate received data including ultrasound data based on the reflections of the ultrasound and artifact data based on an interferer.”) comprising:
a processing circuit configured to acquire first signal data of multiple frames through scan on a subject (Zhou, Para 39-40; “the ultrasound scanner transmits the ultrasound at a first frequency, and the processor system determines an artifact signal including to filter the received signal with a notch filter having a notch based on the first frequency. […] and filtering the received data for consecutive ultrasound image frames.”),
extract second signal data of multiple frames by extracting a signal by nonlinear processing from the first signal data (Zhou, Para 63; "FIG. 4A depicts a view 400 illustrating a filter design diagram according to some embodiments. After the artifacts characteristics are determined, an artifact suppression filter is designed (block 401). The artifact suppression filter can include one or more of a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter, an Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filter, a linear filter, a nonlinear filter, or other artifact suppression filter.”), identify any one of an inappropriate signal point and an inappropriate frame from the second signal data (Zhou, Para 41; “The ultrasound system includes a processor system implemented to determine an artifact signal that is based on the interferer and determine, based on the artifact signal, artifact characteristics. As shown in FIG. 1 , the artifacts characteristics are calculated at block 103. In some embodiments, the artifact characteristics include one or more of an amplitude, a phase, a center frequency, and a bandwidth. In some embodiments, the processor system is implemented to generate, based on the artifact characteristics, filter coefficients, and filter, based on the filter coefficients, the received data to suppress the artifact data and recover the ultrasound data”), and generate third signal data based on an identification result of any one of the inappropriate signal point and the inappropriate frame, and the second signal data (Zhou, Para 63; "FIG. 4A depicts a view 400 illustrating a filter design diagram according to some embodiments. After the artifacts characteristics are determined, an artifact suppression filter is designed (block 401). The artifact suppression filter can include one or more of a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter, an Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filter, a linear filter, a nonlinear filter, or other artifact suppression filter. In some embodiments, the artifacts suppression filter is designed using a corresponding filter design method. As shown in FIG. 4A, artifacts suppression filter design 401 can include a FIR filter design 402, an IIR filter design 403, a linear filter design, a non-linear filter design, or any combination thereof. Depending on the artifacts' amplitude, phase, center frequency, and bandwidth, the filters can be designed accordingly to adequately mitigate the artifacts while minimizing the impact to real signals. Designing the artifact suppression filter can include determining the filter structure (e.g., IIR, FIR, sparse, lattice, linear, non-linear, etc.) and/or determining the coefficients to be used by the filter. In an example, designing the artifact suppression filter includes bit precisions for implementing the filter.").
Regarding claim 2, Zhou discloses all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above.
Zhou further discloses wherein the processing circuit is configured to generate the third signal data by excluding the inappropriate signal point from accumulated signal points (Zhou, Para 63; "FIG. 4A depicts a view 400 illustrating a filter design diagram according to some embodiments. After the artifacts characteristics are determined, an artifact suppression filter is designed (block 401). The artifact suppression filter can include one or more of a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter, an Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filter, a linear filter, a nonlinear filter, or other artifact suppression filter. In some embodiments, the artifacts suppression filter is designed using a corresponding filter design method. As shown in FIG. 4A, artifacts suppression filter design 401 can include a FIR filter design 402, an IIR filter design 403, a linear filter design, a non-linear filter design, or any combination thereof. Depending on the artifacts' amplitude, phase, center frequency, and bandwidth, the filters can be designed accordingly to adequately mitigate the artifacts while minimizing the impact to real signals. Designing the artifact suppression filter can include determining the filter structure (e.g., IIR, FIR, sparse, lattice, linear, non-linear, etc.) and/or determining the coefficients to be used by the filter. In an example, designing the artifact suppression filter includes bit precisions for implementing the filter.").
Regarding claim 3, Zhou discloses all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above.
Zhou further discloses wherein the processing circuit is configured to generate the third signal data by accumulating the second signal data while excluding any one of the inappropriate signal point and the inappropriate frame from an accumulation target (Zhou, Para 62; “In some embodiments, the artifacts characteristics are calculated and implemented frame by frame. In some embodiments, an imaging mode is determined, and based on the determined imaging mode, the filter is applied on a line basis and/or a frame basis. For example, if the imaging mode corresponds to a B-mode ultrasound image, then the filter can be applied on a frame basis. If the imaging mode corresponds to a Doppler ultrasound image, then the filter can be applied on a line basis. In some embodiments, determining the imaging mode and setting of the line versus frame filter generation and application rate is performed automatically and without user interventions”) (Zhou, Para 63; "FIG. 4A depicts a view 400 illustrating a filter design diagram according to some embodiments. After the artifacts characteristics are determined, an artifact suppression filter is designed (block 401). The artifact suppression filter can include one or more of a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter, an Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filter, a linear filter, a nonlinear filter, or other artifact suppression filter. In some embodiments, the artifacts suppression filter is designed using a corresponding filter design method. As shown in FIG. 4A, artifacts suppression filter design 401 can include a FIR filter design 402, an IIR filter design 403, a linear filter design, a non-linear filter design, or any combination thereof. Depending on the artifacts' amplitude, phase, center frequency, and bandwidth, the filters can be designed accordingly to adequately mitigate the artifacts while minimizing the impact to real signals. Designing the artifact suppression filter can include determining the filter structure (e.g., IIR, FIR, sparse, lattice, linear, non-linear, etc.) and/or determining the coefficients to be used by the filter. In an example, designing the artifact suppression filter includes bit precisions for implementing the filter.").
Regarding claim 4, Zhou discloses all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above.
Zhou further discloses wherein the processing circuit is configured to identify a signal point at a position at which number of signal extraction is smaller than a criterion as the inappropriate signal point (Zhou, Para 88; "The machine-learned model can generate a probability (score) that the ultrasound image contains artifacts due to an interferer. If the probability is greater than a threshold probability, such as 80%, then the ultrasound system can cause the notification panel 1204 to be displayed in the user interface 1200 and display the warning/alert. The warning can include text, an icon, an animation, an audio message, haptic feedback (e.g., the ultrasound scanner can vibrate), and the like. In some embodiments, the notification panel 1204 displays artifact characteristics, such as an amplitude, a phase, a center frequency, and/or a bandwidth about the interferer and/or artifacts caused by the interferer.").
Regarding claim 9, Zhou discloses all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above.
Zhou further discloses wherein the processing circuit is configured to accept an input of a criterion to identify any one of the inappropriate signal point and the inappropriate frame, and cause a display unit to display a value to be an index value for any one of each position and each frame for a user to set the criterion (Zhou, Para 87; "In some embodiments, the UI design includes a system notification part and an algorithm implementation part. In some embodiments, for the system notification, the user interface provides notifications to a user including a notification indicating presence of an artifact and a suggestion on the availability of user-on-demand artifact suppression feature. In some embodiments, the algorithm implementation includes a pre-defined static filter as a default setting (user cannot control), an adaptive filter without user controls, and/or an adaptive filter as an advanced feature which a user can turn on/off.") (Zhou, Para 88; “In some embodiments, the notification panel 1204 displays artifact characteristics, such as an amplitude, a phase, a center frequency, and/or a bandwidth about the interferer and/or artifacts caused by the interferer.”).
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 (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 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.
Claims 5-6 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou and Toji et al. (US20140031690, hereafter Toji).
Regarding claim 5, Zhou discloses all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above.
Zhou discloses wherein the processing circuit is configured to identify a frame in which quality property a larger than a criterion as the inappropriate signal point (Zhou, Para 88; "The machine-learned model can generate a probability (score) that the ultrasound image contains artifacts due to an interferer. If the probability is greater than a threshold probability, such as 80%, then the ultrasound system can cause the notification panel 1204 to be displayed in the user interface 1200 and display the warning/alert. The warning can include text, an icon, an animation, an audio message, haptic feedback (e.g., the ultrasound scanner can vibrate), and the like. In some embodiments, the notification panel 1204 displays artifact characteristics, such as an amplitude, a phase, a center frequency, and/or a bandwidth about the interferer and/or artifacts caused by the interferer.").
Zhou does not clearly and explicitly disclose wherein the processing circuit is configured to identify the inappropriate frame based on number of extracted signals in a frame direction.
In an analogous ultrasound imaging field of endeavor Toji discloses wherein a processing circuit is configured to identify an inappropriate frame based on number of extracted signals in a frame direction (Toji, Para 107; "Furthermore, the blood flow region determination unit 106 may analyze the blood flow group itself, before performing processing, such as pattern matching. For example, blood flow noises are often drawn intermittently in the frame direction, and are sometimes separated into individual groups including a small number of blood flow points. Thus, among the blood flow groups, a blood flow group including a smaller number of blood flow points than a threshold value may be judged to be a blood flow noise, and an analysis thereafter on such a blood flow group may be omitted. With this, the need to perform processing of unnecessary information is eliminated, and thus the target blood flow group can be extracted more efficiently.").
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Zhou wherein the processing circuit is configured to identify the inappropriate frame based on number of extracted signals in a frame direction in order to exclude frames with excess blood flow noise and therefore improve quality as taught by Toji (Toji, Para 107).
Regarding claim 6, Zhou discloses all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above.
Zhou does not clearly and explicitly disclose wherein the processing circuit is configured to acquire the first signal data based on signal processing of blood flow imaging.
In an analogous ultrasound imaging field of endeavor Toji discloses wherein a processing circuit is configured to acquire signal data based on signal processing of blood flow imaging (Toji, Para 107; "Furthermore, the blood flow region determination unit 106 may analyze the blood flow group itself, before performing processing, such as pattern matching. For example, blood flow noises are often drawn intermittently in the frame direction, and are sometimes separated into individual groups including a small number of blood flow points. Thus, among the blood flow groups, a blood flow group including a smaller number of blood flow points than a threshold value may be judged to be a blood flow noise, and an analysis thereafter on such a blood flow group may be omitted. With this, the need to perform processing of unnecessary information is eliminated, and thus the target blood flow group can be extracted more efficiently.").
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Zhou wherein the processing circuit is configured to acquire the first signal data based on signal processing of blood flow imaging in order accurately measure blood vessel characteristics for diagnosis as needed as taught by Toji (Toji, Para 2-6).
Regarding claim 8, Zhou discloses all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above.
Zhou does not clearly and explicitly disclose wherein the processing circuit is configured to identify the inappropriate frame based on number of extracted signals in a frame direction.
In an analogous ultrasound imaging field of endeavor Toji discloses wherein a processing circuit is configured to identify an inappropriate frame based on number of extracted signals in a frame direction (Toji, Para 107; "Furthermore, the blood flow region determination unit 106 may analyze the blood flow group itself, before performing processing, such as pattern matching. For example, blood flow noises are often drawn intermittently in the frame direction, and are sometimes separated into individual groups including a small number of blood flow points. Thus, among the blood flow groups, a blood flow group including a smaller number of blood flow points than a threshold value may be judged to be a blood flow noise, and an analysis thereafter on such a blood flow group may be omitted. With this, the need to perform processing of unnecessary information is eliminated, and thus the target blood flow group can be extracted more efficiently.").
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Zhou wherein the processing circuit is configured to identify the inappropriate frame based on number of extracted signals in a frame direction in order to exclude frames with excess blood flow noise and therefore improve quality as taught by Toji (Toji, Para 107).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou and Gafner et al. (US20210096243, hereafter Gafner).
Regarding claim 7, Zhou discloses all of the limitations of claim 1 as discussed above.
Zhou does not clearly and explicitly disclose wherein the processing circuit is configured to identify the inappropriate signal point based on a signal intensity at each point.
In an analogous ultrasound imaging field of endeavor Gafner discloses wherein a processing circuit is configured to identify an inappropriate signal point based on a signal intensity at each point (Gafner, Para 7; "determining the set of ultrasound images from among the plurality of sets of ultrasound images that has the highest quality includes calculating an image sharpness metric for each of the plurality of sets of ultrasound images, calculating a pixel variation metric for each of the plurality of sets of ultrasound images, calculating a noise metric for each of the plurality of sets of ultrasound images, calculating a total variation metric for each of the plurality of sets of ultrasound images, and/or calculating a pixel intensity metric for each of the plurality of sets of ultrasound images.") (Gafner, Para 44; "determining the quality of a set of ultrasound images may include determining a total variation metric for the image. For further description of the total variation metric, see Rudin, Leonid I., Stanley Osher, and Emad Fatemi. “Nonlinear total variation based noise removal algorithms.” Physica D: nonlinear phenomena 60.1-4 (1992): 259-268.") (Gafner, Para 45; " determining the quality of a set of ultrasound images may include determining a pixel intensity metric. For example, determining the pixel intensity metric for an ultrasound image may include summing the absolute value/square/any power of the pixel intensities of the ultrasound image. A higher value for this metric may correspond to a higher quality image.").
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Zhou wherein the processing circuit is configured to identify the inappropriate signal point based on a signal intensity at each point in order to produce ultrasound images of higher quality for use by the practitioner as taught by Gafner (Gafner, Para 4-13).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to John Li whose telephone number is (313)446-4916. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Thursday; 5:30 AM to 3:30 PM Eastern.
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/JOHN D LI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3798