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 Objections
Claim 8 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 8 recites: “The apparatus of claim, …”. It does not specify the claim number it depends upon. The Examiner considers it depends on claim 5.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 13, 14 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Liu et al. (US Patent Application Publication 2023/0128130, IDS), hereinafter referred as Liu.
Regarding claim 1, Liu discloses an apparatus for a cross modality image co-registration system ([0054 – 0055]; [0006]: "vascular branch registration, which uses automatic matching of vascular branches to fuse GAG and IVUS images"), comprising:
a processor ([0054]) arranged to be coupled to an intravascular imaging device and/or a fluoroscope device (Fig. 1, image acquisition (device)); and
a memory storage device ([0059]) comprising instructions executable by the processor, which instructions when executed by the processor cause the apparatus to:
identify first side branches in a first image frame, the first image frame corresponding to a first imaging modality ([0038]: "locating a vessel branch [ ... ] of the GAG image". "GAG" means "coronary angiography" and is an extravascular imaging);
identify second side branches in a plurality of second image frames, the plurality of second image frames corresponding to a second imaging modality different than the first imaging modality ([0034]: branches are also identified in the IVUS image, which is intravascular ultrasound; [0046], several IVUS images are registered to a CAG image.);
match, without user input, ones of the first side branches with ones of the second side branches ([0046]: "automatic matching of vascular branches to fuse CAG and IVUS images"); and
co-register the plurality of second image frames with the first image frame based on the matching ([0006] discloses that the registration uses the automatic matching of the branches),
wherein co-registering the plurality of second image frames comprises adjusting locations of the second side branches on the first image frame (By definition, registration is the process of adjusting locations of features of one image on the other image. In particular, a 3D reconstruction is obtained, wherein it is implicit that the side branches from the second image frames have been adjusted to the locations of the side branches on the first image frame (otherwise, the branches would appear twice in the resulting image, which is not desirable)).
Regarding claim 2 (depends on claim 1), Liu discloses the apparatus wherein the first imaging modality is x-ray angiography ([0039]: coronary angiography image) and where the second imaging modality is intravascular ultrasound, optical coherence tomography, or computed tomography (CT) angiography ([0039]: intravascular ultrasound image).
Regarding claims 13 – 14, they are corresponding to claims 1 – 2, respectively, thus, they are interpreted and rejected for the same reason set forth for claims 1 – 2.
Regarding claim 19, it is corresponding to claim 1, thus, it is interpreted and rejected for the same reason set forth for claim 1.
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.
Claim(s) 3 – 4, 15 – 16 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu in view of Guo et al. (US Patent Application Publication 2022/0218298), hereinafter referred as Guo.
Regarding claim 3 (depends on claim 1), Liu discloses the apparatus the instructions when executed to match ones of the first side branches with ones of the second side branches further cause the apparatus to:
identify one of a plurality of first side branches or one of a plurality of second side branches as a reference image of side branches (Fig. 3, [0038 – 0040], iteratively matching images);
identify a plurality of candidate images of side branches based in part on the reference image of side branches, wherein each candidate image of side branches of the plurality of candidate images includes at least one of the plurality of first side branches or at least one of the plurality of second side branches (Fig. 3, [0038 – 0040], iteratively matching images); and
identify a plurality of matched images of side branches from the plurality of candidate images of side branches based in part on characteristics of the plurality of first side branches or the plurality of second side branches, wherein each pair of the plurality of matched images of side branches includes a one of the plurality of first side branches or a one of the plurality of second side branches (Fig. 3, [0038 – 0040], iteratively matching images).
However, Liu fails to explicitly disclose wherein identify and match a pair of images.
However, in a similar field of endeavor Guo discloses a method for medical image processing (abstract). In addition, Guo discloses the method processing and comparing the acquired images in pairs ([0107 - 0108]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Liu, and identify and match a pair of images. The motivation for doing this is to determine geometric transformations, track object movement, and analyze visual similarity across different perspectives.
Regarding claim 4 (depends on claim 3), Liu discloses the apparatus wherein the characteristics includes one or more of a diameter of the side branch, an orientation of the side branch, a relative size of the side branch, or a relative location of the side branch ([0039], length).
Regarding claims 15 – 16, they are corresponding to claims 3 – 4, respectively, thus, they are interpreted and rejected for the same reason set forth for claims 3 – 4.
Regarding claim 20, it is corresponding to claim 3, thus, it is interpreted and rejected for the same reason set forth for claim 3.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5 – 12 and 17 – 18 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claim 5 (similar as to claim 17) discloses the feature of identifying, by the computing device, the distance along a centerline of the vessel between bifurcations in the first side branches and the second side branches; determining if the distance between trifurcations in the first side branches and the second side branches is less than a threshold distance; and designating, based on a determination that the distance between trifurcations is less than the threshold distance, the pair of first and second side branches as the reference pair of side branches.
The closest reference Denziger et al. (US 2023/0086196) teaches a method for evaluating a three-dimensional angiography dataset of a blood vessel tree of a patient wherein at least one condition may compare at least one angle at a bifurcation (or multifurcation) to a threshold angle and/or at least one curvature in at least one vessel segment to a threshold curvature and/or at least one number of multifurcations in at least one vessel segment with a reference number and/or distances between centerline tree features and/or at least one additional anatomy feature described by anatomy information derived from the angiography dataset and/or the additional image dataset and/or may check the presence of at least one type of multifurcation, in particular trifurcation ([0040]). However, it fails to teach, alone or in a combination, the claimed limitations in the claim 5 in combination with the claims it depends upon.
Regarding the rest of claims, the rest of claims are dependent claims for claim 5 and 17, respectively, thus, they would be allowable accordingly.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to QIAN YANG whose telephone number is (571)270-7239. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday 8am-6pm.
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/QIAN YANG/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2677
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