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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12/26/24 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Medina (US 2017/0255338).
With regard to claim 1, Medina discloses:
A data compression method, comprising: acquiring delay data (Fig. 2) from a plurality of focuses to different array elements (Fig. 1) during ultrasonic imaging (178 Fig. 1); determining focus phase (Fig. 4) description information corresponding to the array elements based on the delay data (para 53)//phase delay pattern 410 is a three phase (indicated using different hatch patterns) activated phase delay pattern of ultrasonic transducers in a 9×9 array position that is used to generate an ultrasonic beam with a focus point at the center of phase delay pattern 410 and having a particular depth above two-dimensional array 400) and compressing the focus phase description information corresponding to the array elements to obtain compressed delay data. (the patterns may be compressed or the time delay of the patterns may change).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-14 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.
Claims 15-20 are allowed.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Fontana (US 2022/0361849) discloses .
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PEGUY JEAN PIERRE whose telephone number is (571) 272-1803. The examiner can normally be reached from 8:00-6:30 PM Monday-Thursday. The examiner’s fax phone number is (571) 273-1803. The Examiner email address is peguy.jeanpierre@uspto.gov. If attempts to reach the Examiner are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor Dameon E. Levi can be reached at (571) 272-2105.
/PEGUY JEAN PIERRE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2845
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