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 .
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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
1. Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 12 recites “and/or”, and it is not clearly understood if the claim language refers to the inclusive “and” or the exclusive “or”. The Examiner recommends choosing either “and” or “or”, not both, to provide clarity.
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
2. Claims 1-2 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 20240087218 A1: Kaloian Petkov et al., (herein after “Petkov”).
Regarding claim 1, A medical image data processing method comprising (Petkov, Fig. 1-3):
displaying a map that represents a plurality of image rendering parameters or other image generation conditions (Petkov, Fig. 11 shows a map representing image generation conditions.);
setting an indicator to select one or more of the image rendering parameters or other image generation conditions (Petkov, P[0069]: “The visualization settings may include rendering parameters provided at act 320. Pre-computed assets may also be used to define or supplement the one or more visualization settings.”);
inputting medical image data and the selected one or more of image rendering parameters or other image generation conditions into a model (Petkov, Fig. 4 shows inputting medical images from the patient volume and the body atlas and are used in combination with image generation conditions, where the entirety of Fig. 4 is the model.); and
outputting a rendered medical image or other medical image data generated using the selected one or more of image rendering parameters or other image generation conditions (Petkov, Fig. 4, Rendered image(s)).
Claims 18 and 20 recite features nearly identical to those recited in claim 11. Claims 18 and 20 are rejected for reasons analogous to those discussed above in conjunction with claim 1.
Regarding claim 2, wherein at least one of:
a) the model comprises at least one of an image captioning model and multi-modal LLM;
b) the model is trained using a plurality of image generation conditions and a plurality of medical image data generated under the plurality of image generation conditions;
c) the map includes anatomical information (Petkov, Fig. 11, map shows anatomical information.);
d) the plurality of image generation conditions include conditions regarding segmentation;
e) the plurality of image generation conditions include a condition related to at least one of image rotation, enlargement and reduction, and viewing direction;
f) the plurality of image generation conditions include a condition related to rendering; or
g) the plurality of image generation conditions comprise multiple types of image generation conditions.
Regarding claim 19, wherein model is stored at a remote server or in the cloud, and the inputting of the medical image data and the selected one or more of image rendering parameters or other image generation conditions comprises sending the medical image data and the selected one or more of image rendering parameters or other image generation conditions to the remote server or the cloud (Petkov, P[0081]: “For example, a computer network is included for remote image generation of locally acquired image data by the server 440.”, and P[0083]: “For example, a computer network is included for remote image generation of locally acquired image data by the server 440”).
Allowable Subject Matter
3. Claims 3-11 and 13-17 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.
Claim 12 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
4. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TY M BEATTY whose telephone number is (703)756-5370. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri: 8AM-4PM EST..
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Gregory Morse can be reached at (571) 272 - 3838. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/TY MITCHELL BEATTY/Examiner, Art Unit 2663
/GREGORY A MORSE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2698
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