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 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) 1-3, 7-9, 15, 17, 23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Richter (US 2020/0245960).
As to claim 1, Richter discloses a method for lesion region identification, implemented on a computing device having at least one processor and at least one storage device (para. 0382), the method comprising:
identifying a target region corresponding to at least one reference organ from a first medical image of a target subject (para. 0011, 0036);
determining, based on the target region, a reference threshold used for lesion detection (para. 0036); and
identifying, based on the reference threshold, a lesion region from the first medical image (para. 0036).
As to claim 2, Richter discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the identifying a target region corresponding to at least one reference organ from a first medical image of a target subject includes: generating a segmentation image of the at least one reference organ by segmenting the at least one reference organ from a second medical image of the target subject, the second medical image being acquired using a second imaging modality different from a first imaging modality corresponding to the first medical image (para. 0036), 0063); and identifying the target region from the first medical image based on the segmentation image (para. 0036, 0063).
As to claim 3, Richter discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the identifying a target region corresponding to at least one reference organ from a first medical image of a target subject includes: identifying the target region from the first medical image by inputting the first medical image into a reference organ segmentation model, the reference organ segmentation model being a trained machine learning model (para. 0200 , 0208-0211, 00306).
As to claim 7, Richter discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising: generating, based on the lesion region, a lesion distribution image (Fig. 4, para. 0207); obtaining at least one reference segmentation image, the at least one reference segmentation image including at least one of a first segmentation image of organs of the target subject or a second segmentation image of body parts of the target subject (para. 0206, 0208),and determining, based on the lesion distribution image and the at least one reference segmentation image, position information of the lesion region in the target subject (para. 0285).
As to claim 8, Richter discloses the method of claim 7, wherein the position information includes at least one of: which organ or body part that the lesion region belongs to, a location, a contour, a shape, a height, a width, a thickness, an area, a volume, or a ratio of height to width of the lesion region in the target subject (para. 0207).
As to claim 9, Richter discloses the method of claim 7, wherein the obtaining at least one reference segmentation image includes at least one of: generating the first segmentation image by segmenting the organs of the target subject from a second medical image of the target subject (para. 0207-0208, 0285); or generating the second segmentation image by segmenting the body parts of the target subject from a third medical image of the target subject (para. 0207-0208, 0285).
As to claims 15, 17, 23, these claims recite features similar to those discussed above. Therefore, they are rejected for reasons similar to those discussed above.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 4, 24 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Richter (US 2020/0245960) in view of TAMAL [“Intensity Threshold Based Solid Tumour Segmentation Method for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Images: A review”].
As to claim 4, Richter discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the determining, based on the target region, a reference threshold used for lesion detection includes: identifying, from the first medical image, a second target region corresponding to one or more normal organs (para. 0225-20227, 0234)
Richter does not disclose determining, based on the first medical image and the second target region, a comparison coefficient; and determining, based on the target region and the comparison coefficient, the reference threshold.
TAMAL teaches determining, based on the first medical image and the second target region, a comparison coefficient (Section 3. Fixed threshold and 4. Adaptive threshold; Equations 5-7); and determining, based on the target region and the comparison coefficient, the reference threshold (Section 3. Fixed threshold and 4. Adaptive threshold; Equations 5-7).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate TAMAL’s teachings into Richter since doing so would merely combine prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results, and improve performance.
As to claims 24, the claim recites features similar to those discussed above. Therefore, claim 4 is rejected for reasons similar to those discussed above.
8. Claim(s) 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Richter (US 2020/0245960) in view of SAKAUE (US 2015/0294445).
Richter does not disclose generating a report based on the position information of the lesion region in the target subject, the report including text descriptions regarding the position information.
SAKAUE teaches generating a report based on the position information of the lesion region in the target subject, the report including text descriptions regarding the position information (para. 0106).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate SAKAUE’s teachings into Richter since doing so would merely combine prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results, and improve medical assessment.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-6, 10-13, 25-26 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: The prior art discloses the claim limitations discussed above, but fails to disclose the combined features required each of dependent claims 5-6, 10-13, 25-26.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PHUOC TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-7399. The examiner can normally be reached 9am-5pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vu Le can be reached at 571-272-7332. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/PHUOC TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2668
Prosecution Insights