DETAILED ACTION
Notices to Applicant
This communication is a final rejection. Claims 1-6, as filed 03/02/2026, are currently pending and have been considered below.
Priority is generally acknowledged to JP 2023-183921 which was filed 10/26/2023. The Examiner notes that the priority documents have not been received as described in the correspondence from 03/26/2025.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . 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 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.
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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claims 1-3 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wright (US20170235880A1) in view of Maresh (US20090112882A1).
Regarding claim 1, Wright discloses: An information management server comprising a hardware processor and a storage, wherein the hardware processor (FIG. 1A; cloud server in [0049]) is configured to
--obtain first medical information in a DICOM format of a first medical facility and second medical information in the DICOM format of a second medical facility directly from the first medical facility and the second medical facility (“The on-site unit performs a search of configured databases, such as the PACS or HIS/MS to gather related data about the patient, for example, x-rays of the patient's lower back from two months previous. All of these studies are transferred to the on-site unit, for example, via DICOM query/retrieve,” [0060]; “A modality is an instrument that can acquire images of the body, such as radiography, ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging (MM), among others. These instruments can obtain a patient's images and convert such native images into DICOM series and studies,” [0065]),
--store the first medical information and the second medical information in the storage (“The cloud server parses the virtual package for metadata, and stores the metadata, virtual package identifiers, recipient(s), studies, and related information into the cloud database (5),” [0061]),
--generate display information for a display of a user terminal to display the obtained first medical information and second medical information (“A cloud server may include an HTTP/HTTPS server sending and receiving HTTP/HTTPS messages in order to provide web browsing user interfaces to client web browsers,” [0049]; “a doctor at workstation 115 could have viewed the sent studies online using their web browser via direct interaction with the cloud servers,” [0062]).
Wright focuses on obtaining DICOM images and transferring them through the cloud with the recipient viewing the studies with a web browser, but primarily focuses on sharing between hospitals rather than between two hospitals and a patient. Wright does not expressly disclose but Maresh teaches:
--output the generated display information to the user terminal, thereby allowing user access to the first medical information from the first medical facility and the second medical information from the second medical facility through a connection of the information management server to the user terminal (“This list may aggregate available studies from multiple medical facilities or may present only studies from one source medical facility, based upon whether the initial request was to one or multiple facilities or all known facilities,” [0142]; [0143]; “a storage module configured to determine whether to store the at least one medical file in at least a PACS, an image server, a radiology information system, or a hospital information system,” [0011]; “the at least one medical file is located semi-automatically or automatically by the system, and the resulting medical files can be displayed to the user for selection and/or approval,” [0013]).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date would have been motivated to expand Wright’s DICOM image transferring and aggregation techniques to include the patient-facing portal for images from multiple institutions as taught by Maresh because this would improve image-based decision-making by allowing the users to view images from multiple facilities beside one another ((Maresh [0052]-[0053]).
Additionally, it can be seen that each element is taught by either Wright or Maresh. Maresh’s portal does not affect the normal functioning of the image transfer and aggregation elements of the claim which are taught by Wright. Because the elements do not affect the normal functioning of each other, the results of their combination would have been predictable. Therefore, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to combine the teachings of Maresh with the teachings of Wright since the result is merely a combination of old elements, and, since the elements do not affect the normal functioning of each other, the results of the combination would have been predictable.
Regarding claim 2, Wright discloses: wherein the hardware processor obtains the first medical information from a first medical image management apparatus of the first medical facility and obtains the second medical information from a second medical image management apparatus of the second medical facility (“Hospital A's network can also include one or more PACS,” [0066]; Hospital B with a PACS in [0062] and FIG. 5B).
Regarding claim 3, Wright discloses: An information sharing system comprising: the user terminal including: the display; and a hardware processor that causes the display to display the first medical information and the second medical information satisfying a predetermined condition (“Workstations 109, and mobile devices 108 may also be attached to a hospital network, and be configured to view and access medical information on a HIS or MS 106, modality such as an Mill 107, a PACS system, or the on-site unit,” [0068]).
Regarding claim 5, the claim is substantially similar to claim 1 and is rejected with the same reasoning. The Examiner further notes that Wright discloses: a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a program causing a computer of an information management server to perform (“the system is implemented as a number of software modules that comprise computer executable code for performing the functions described herein. In one embodiment, the computer executable code is executed on one or more general purpose computers,” [0056]).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wright (US20170235880A1) in view of Maresh (US20090112882A1) and Francesco (US20200082930A1).
Regarding claim 4, Wright does not expressly disclose but Francesco teaches: The information sharing system according to claim 3, wherein the hardware processor of the user terminal receives, as a setting of the predetermined condition, at least one of a selection of a medical facility, a selection of unread medical information, and a selection of favorite-set medical information (“The changed worklist data may include at least one of bookmark information associated with a particular user or new/viewed state information associated with a particular user, and sharing the changed worklist data with one or more users may include sharing the changed worklist data with the particular user associated with the bookmark information or the new/viewed state information,” [0033]; bookmarking and view/new state in [0456]-[0457]).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date would have been motivated to expand Wright and Maresh’s aggregated imaging data to include the filter settings of Francesco because as the number of images in the database grows, filters would help users efficiently find the most relevant images. Francesco [0456]: “To efficiently query and display worklist data when a large number of scans exist, it must be possible to search and filter the list of scans based on a number of criteria”.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wright (US20170235880A1) in view of Maresh (US20090112882A1) and Santos (US20140195263A1).
Regarding claim 6, Wright does not expressly disclose but Santos teaches:
--wherein the hardware processor obtains vital information from the user terminal, the vital information being obtained from an input from a patient or from a vital measurement apparatus (“These PHDs may collect vital signals of users, such as blood pressure, heart rate, weight, etc., and share these signals in the form of digital data using communications technologies, such as Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, USB, Near Field Communications (“NFC”), RFID, etc.,” [0003]; “A personal health data hub (“PHDH”) may include a device that receives PHD data using wireless or wired communication technologies and associates this data to a specific user. Association of data may include storage of the received data as owned by one user. The PHDH may, in various embodiments, send this data to external databases or not,” [0018), and
--stores the vital information in the storage associated with the patient on the user terminal (“If the user has started a session on the PHDH 203, measures received by it may be associated to this user and saved on memory 204,” [0025]; claim 33).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date would have been motivated to expand Wright and Maresh’s aggregated imaging data to include the vital collection features of Santos because combining imaging data with vitals data would improve continuity of care and facilitate patients “tak[ing] care of their own health at home” (Santos [0006]).
Additionally, it can be seen that each element is taught by either Wright, Maresh, or Santos. Santos’s patient vitals data do not affect the normal functioning of the image transfer and aggregation elements of the claim which are taught by Wright and Maresh. Because the elements do not affect the normal functioning of each other, the results of their combination would have been predictable. Therefore, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to combine the teachings of Santos with the teachings of Wright and Maresh since the result is merely a combination of old elements, and, since the elements do not affect the normal functioning of each other, the results of the combination would have been predictable.
Response to arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 03/02/2026 have been fully considered and are discussed below.
The subject matter ineligibility rejections under 101 are withdrawn in light of claim amendments and arguments. The claims now recite a particular system architecture that enables sharing DICOM information on external networks with limitations that integrate any abstract ideas into a practical application and impose meaningful limits that reflect a particular technological implementation.
Regarding the prior art rejections, Applicant’s arguments are moot in light of the newly-applied grounds of rejection described above.
Conclusion
Applicant’s amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office Action (See MPEP 706.07(a)). Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSHUA BLANCHETTE whose telephone number is (571)272-2299. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Thursday 7:30AM - 6:00PM, EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Shahid Merchant, can be reached on (571) 270-1360. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JOSHUA B BLANCHETTE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3624
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