DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 8, it is unclear as to what is meant by “the amount of difference between the one or more first densities of the and the one or more second densities”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim(s) 9-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because given the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims being directed to a computer readable media, the limitations cover forms of non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of computer readable media. When the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim covers a signal per se, the claim is non-statutory. In order to overcome this rejection, the Examiner advises amending the language to express the medium in terms of a non-transitory medium.
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 may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 9, 10, 15, and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over “Development of a Quantitative Intracranial Vascular Features Extraction Tool on 3D MRA Using Semiautomated Open-Curve Active Contour Vessel Tracing” by L. Chen et al. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 79:3229-3238, 2018 (Chen), in view of “A Novel Method for Vessel Segmentation and Automatic Diagnosis of Vascular Stenosis” by C. Sui et al. Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Biomim. 2019 (Sui).
Regarding claims 1, 9, and 15, Chen discloses a method and system comprising: obtaining an image of a brain of an individual; identifying, using the image, a blood vessel located in the brain of an individual based on a template that indicates locations of a number of blood vessels located in a human brain (p.3231, Fig. 1: “Vessel Tracing” is performed using “active contour model” which is considered a template); determining a starting point with respect to the blood vessel, the starting point indicating a first voxel of the image that is included in a path of the blood vessel within the brain of the individual (p.3231: “seed points”); determining a path along the blood vessel based on density values corresponding to the blood vessel, the density values indicating an amount of contrast between portions of the image related to the blood vessel and background portions of the image (p.3231: “tracing process starts stretching from the seed point according to intensity value from the vesselness image”); determining an endpoint of the blood vessel based at least partly on the template (p.3231: “until the length increases is below 5% after an iteration again or until a maximum iteration number is reached”). Chen does not explicitly disclose determining that the blood vessel terminates before the endpoint and determining, based on the blood vessel terminating before the endpoint, a probability that an abnormality is present with respect to the blood vessel. However, Sui teaches segmenting images of vasculature and detecting perceived endpoints which may be identified as stenotic sections, wherein the degree of stenosis may be quantified as generic or severe, which would serve as a measure of probability (p. 921: “General obstruction”, “Severe obstruction”). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to apply the detection of Sui to the segmented data of Chen, as to provide robust detection of vessel abnormalities during segmentation and vessel tracing.
Regarding claims 2, 10, and 16, Chen does not explicitly disclose that the path along the blood vessel corresponds to a shortest path that is determined based on vesselness values of voxels of the image in locations that correspond to the location of the blood vessel, the vesselness values corresponding to eigenvalues of a Hessian filter. However, Chen does teach the use of a vesselness filter (p.3231) and Sui teaches utilizing the eigenvectors of a Hessian matrix in performing vessel segmentation (p.919). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to apply the Hessian of Sui to the vessel segmentation of Chen, as to provide robust and well-known segmentation means.
Claim(s) 3-5, 11-13, and 17-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over “Development of a Quantitative Intracranial Vascular Features Extraction Tool on 3D MRA Using Semiautomated Open-Curve Active Contour Vessel Tracing” by L. Chen et al. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 79:3229-3238, 2018 (Chen), in view of “A Novel Method for Vessel Segmentation and Automatic Diagnosis of Vascular Stenosis” by C. Sui et al. Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Biomim. 2019 (Sui), as applied to claims 1, 9, and 15 above, in view of Ostrovsky (US 2010/0296709).
Regarding claims 3, 11, and 17, neither Chen nor Sui explicitly disclose that the starting point of the blood vessel corresponds to a voxel having a highest vesselness value, the voxel being located in a proximal portion of the blood vessel. However, Ostrovsky teaches a vesselness measure and cost function that is used to optimize segmentation ([0112]…[0115]). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to apply a highest vesselness value as taught by Ostrovsky, so as to provide a minimal vesselness cost.
Regarding claims 4, 12, and 18, neither Chen nor Sui explicitly disclose that the path of the blood vessel terminates based on the cost of the shortest path exceeding a threshold cost. However, Ostrovsky teaches a vesselness measure and cost function that is used to optimize segmentation ([0112]…[0115]). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to apply a cost function towards determining termination as taught by Ostrovsky, so as to provide a robust cost-based segmentation.
Regarding claims 5, 13, and 19, neither Chen nor Sui explicitly disclose that the path of the blood vessel terminates in response to determining that no voxels remain along the path of the blood vessel that have a finite cost to pass through. However, Ostrovsky teaches a vesselness measure and cost function that is used to optimize segmentation ([0112]…[0115]). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to determine termination in accordance to a cost function as taught by Ostrovsky, so as to provide a robust cost-based segmentation.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jason Ip whose telephone number is (571) 270-5387. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9a-5p PST.
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/JASON M IP/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3793