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Claims 1-7 and 15-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected method, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 12/03/2025.
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.
Claim(s) 8-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Mammone (US 2013/0023767 A1).
Regarding claim 8, Mammone (‘767) teach a sonography system comprising: a transducer, receiving sound signals from a living body and converting the sound signals into electrical signals (“probe 100 is shown to include an ultrasound transducer 102” see [0041]; and Fig. 1); a transform module for transforming the electrical signal into frequency intensity values (“These reflection coefficients may be put into a frequency domain vector and an inverse Fourier transform may be used to transform into the time/distance domain” see [0050]); a neural network receiving a representation of the frequency intensity values as input and outputting an indication of whether the living body has liver cancer (“automatically determine probabilities of what the regions of interest actually are (e.g., malignant cancer, benign cancer, unknown tissue). The classifiers 1622 may include neural network(s)” see [0090]); and a display for displaying whether the living body has liver cancer (“The resulting aggregation or summation may be displayed as a composite A-scan 1628” see [0090]).
Regarding claim 9, Mammone (‘767) teach the sonography system of claim 8 wherein the representation of the frequency intensity values comprises an image and wherein the sonography system further comprises a processor that converts the frequency intensity values into the image (see [0089]-[0090]).
Regarding claim 10, Mammone (‘767) teach the sonography system of claim 9 wherein the image comprises a graph of frequency intensities over time (see [0089]-[0090], [0096]).
Regarding claim 11, Mammone (‘767) teach the sonography system of claim 10 wherein the image uses brightness to indicate intensity (see [0089]-[0090], [0096]).
Regarding claim 12, Mammone (‘767) teach the sonography system of claim 1 wherein the received sound signals comprise reflected ultrasound signals (see [0041]-[0042]).
Regarding claim 13, Mammone (‘767) teach the sonography system of claim 12 wherein the reflected ultrasound signals are reflected from a main portal vein (see [0087]).
Regarding claim 14, Mammone (‘767) teach the sonography system of claim 13 wherein the reflected ultrasound signals are not reflected from the liver (see [0087]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARK REMALY whose telephone number is (571)270-1491. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 9:00 - 6:00.
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/MARK D REMALY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3797