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.
With regards to claims 1 and 3, the term “gold standard” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. The term “gold standard” is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite (MPEP 2173.05(b)).
Furthermore, it is unclear what establishes a specific “gold” or exceptional standard. Is this a specific claim function previously recited? Such limitations may be considered indefinite if the resulting claim does not clearly set forth the metes and bounds of the patent protection desired. See MPEP § 2173.05(c).
Dependent claims 2-3 inherit the deficiencies of independent claim 1.
With regards to claim 3, the term “best game balance” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. The term “best game balance” is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite (MPEP 2173.05(b)).
Furthermore, it is unclear what establishes a specific “best game” or exceptional standard. Is this a specific claim function previously recited that has been compared or equated? Such limitations may be considered indefinite if the resulting claim does not clearly set forth the metes and bounds of the patent protection desired. See MPEP § 2173.05(c).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
Claims 1-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Regarding claim 1:
Under Step 1: Claim 1 is directed to a method.
Under Step 2A – Prong 1:
Claim 1 recites the abstract idea of evaluating and presenting fluorescein angiography images. This abstract idea is described in at least claim 1 by “collecting the noninvasive fundus images and fluorescein angiography images at different angiography periods for an eye” and “constructing the fluorescein angiography images based on the noninvasive fundus images”. These steps fall into the mental process groups of abstract ideas as they include, mentally or using the aid of pen and paper, “using fluorescein angiography images as a gold standard”. These limitations as drafted processes that, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, cover the performance of the limitations in the mind. Nothing in claim 1 precludes the idea form practically being performed in the human mind.
Under Step 2A – Prong 2:
The claim recite additional elements ensuring that retinal structures of the noninvasive fundus images and retinal structures of the fluorescein angiography images are in eye-to-eye correspondence. However, these additional elements fail to integrate into a practical application. The adversarial network, has been interpreted as a generic computing component. These additional elements are considered to be directed to insignificant solution activity as the step gathers data necessary to perform the abstract idea and outputting results. These additional steps amount necessary data gathering, wherein all uses of the recited abstract idea require such data gathering or data output. See MPEP 2106.05(g).
Under Step 2B:
For the same reasons addressed above with respect to step 2A, the additional elements recited in claim 1 fail to amount to inventive concept. As such, the additional elements individually and in combination do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Thus, when considering the combination of elements and the claimed invention as a whole, the claims are not patent eligible.
Regarding claim 2 and 3:
Dependent claims 2 and 3 only recite limitations further defining the mental processes and recite further data gathering. These limitations are considered mental processes without significantly more elements to the abstract idea. These additional elements fail to integrate into a practical application. As such, the additional elements individually and in combination do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, when considering the combination of elements and the claimed invention as a whole claim 2 and 3 are not patent eligible.
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 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Xin (CN 111860782 A). An English machine translation has been provided for the foreign patent publication.
Regarding claim 1, Xin discloses a method for automatically generating fluorescein angiography images based on noninvasive fundus images ([0016], method for generating fundus fluorescein angiography using triple multi-scale adversarial learning), comprising steps as follows: S1: collecting the noninvasive fundus images and fluorescein angiography images at different angiography periods for an eye, ensuring that retinal structures of the noninvasive fundus images and retinal structures of the fluorescein angiography images are in eye-to-eye correspondence ([0038], triple multi-scale adversarial learning-based fundus fluorescein angiography generation method enhances the similarity between retinal morphologies at different scales and provides stricter constraints, improving the modal capability of relation mapping by generating and reconstructing at different scales and processes at the feature layer); and S2: using fluorescein angiography images as a gold standard, training a conditional generative adversarial network ([0075], using the original and scaled-down images of color fundus images as training sets or target sets), inputting the noninvasive fundus images (Fig 4(e), [0073], original color fundus image from Figure 4(a) and the downsampled image are input together into the generator G), and then constructing the fluorescein angiography images based on the noninvasive fundus images ([0075], the triple multi-scale CycleGAN is trained until the total loss function converges, thereby obtaining the trained triple multi-scale CycleGAN).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 and 3 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 and 35 U.S.C. 101, set forth in this Office action and to include 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: with respect to the allowable subject matter, none of the prior art either alone or in combination disclose or teach of the claimed combination of limitations to warrant a rejection under 35 USC 102 or 103.
Specifically, with respect to dependent claim 2, the prior art of Xin taken either singly or in combination with any other prior art fails to suggest such a method including the specific arrangement: “wherein the noninvasive fundus images in the step S1 comprise a regular view noninvasive fundus image to an ultra-wide field fundus image, and the fluorescein angiography images comprise a retinal vascular fluorescein angiography image and a choroidal vascular fluorescein angiography image”.
Specifically, with respect to dependent claim 3, the prior art of Xin taken either singly or in combination with any other prior art fails to suggest such a method including the specific arrangement: “wherein the conditional generative adversarial network in the step S2 comprise a generator and a discriminator; the step S2 further comprises: inputting the noninvasive fundus images, and using the generator to generate the fluorescein angiography images; distinguishing difference between the generated fluorescein angiography images and the gold standard by the discriminator, thereby creating feedback between the generator and the discriminator to continuously, meaning that the outputted generated fluorescein angiography images are closest to the real fluorescein angiography images; at this point, extracting the generator for use when the model is constructed”.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Xu (20190333219), Mattyus (20190147320), and Flower (5394199) are examples of generating and evaluating enhanced CBCT images using a computing device.
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Sharrief I. Broome
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2872
/SHARRIEF I BROOME/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2872
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