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 Objections
Claim 3 is objected to because of the following informalities: the language "such an activated one" on line 2 and "such an activate one" on line 7 appear to be missing words or otherwise have a grammar issue. Appropriate correction is required.
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)(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.
Claims 1-2, 4-8, 15, 17-18, 20-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Steen (US 2016/0063742 A1; search report).
Regarding claims 1, 17, and 20, Steen discloses an apparatus of an ultrasound imaging device, the apparatus including one or more processors to be coupled to transducer elements of an ultrasonic transducer of the imaging device, the one or more processors to:
perform rounds of image generation for the ultrasound imaging device, each round including [[title] enhanced frame rate upconversion in ultrasound imaging; [0023] term “image' broadly refers to both viewable images and data representing a viewable image. However, many embodiments generate (or are configured to generate) at least one viewable image.]:
causing an interlaced activation of the transducer elements to generate a transmitted ultrasonic waveform toward a target to be imaged and to collect electrical signals defining a reduced power partial frame including existing receive (Rx) scanlines interlaced with missing Rx scanlines [[0029] transmit beam former 110 may comprise suitable circuitry that may be operable to control the transmitter 102 which, through a transmit sub-aperture beam former 114, drives the group of transmit transducer elements 106 to emit ultrasonic transmit signals into a region of interest [0030] group of transmit transducer elements 106 can be activated to transmit ultrasonic signals.; [0053] improvement may be achieved by acquiring lower resolution frames (or parts thereof), which may be used to enhance the main (e.g., high resolution) frames, particularly correcting possible artifacts. For example, the ultrasonic system 100 may be configured to implement a frame interleaved acquisition scheme, in which frames (e.g., lower resolution) may be acquired and used in enhancing the main (e.g., high resolution) frames.], the electrical signals generated from ultrasonic waves reflected from the target and based on the transmitted ultrasonic waveform [[0030] transmitted ultrasonic signals may be back-scattered from structures in the object of interest, like tissue, to produce echoes. The echoes are received by the receive transducer elements 108.; [0031] The group of receive transducer elements 108 in the ultrasound probe 104 may be operable to convert the received echoes into analog signals]; and
processing the reduced power partial frame along with an input frame to generate a reconstructed frame therefrom [[0054] low resolution volume is then used to assist an up-interpolation algorithm that creates intermediate high resolution volume(s) between the original ones. The lower resolution volume is thus never shown directly to the user.; [0055]]; and
at least one of generate display signals to cause each reconstructed frame to be displayed on a display [display system #150], or cause each reconstructed frame to be stored in memory [[0037] signal processor 140, the image buffer 136, and/or the display system 150.], wherein the input frame, after an initialization round of the rounds of image generation, corresponds to a previous reconstructed frame of a previous round of image generation [[0070] motion vector(s) may be applied (e.g., for initialization) of a suitable optical flow method (e.g., Horn-Schunck method) which may be used in generating the interpolated frames.; [0088] In step 606, low resolution frames (or parts thereof) may be obtained. Such as in interleaved manner (e.g., frame or beam based), corresponding to the high-resolution frames.; [0089] In step 608, information may be obtained from low resolution frames (or parts thereof), and that information may be used in improving accuracy of motion estimation in high resolution frames. The information may obtained solely from the low resolution frames (or parts thereof), or from the com bination of the low resolution frames (or parts thereof) and the high resolution frames. The information may relate to, for example, tracking of motion of certain objects or structures in the low resolution].
Regarding claim 2, Steen teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein: the one or more processors are to be coupled to the transducer elements by way of transmit (Tx) channels and receive (Rx) channels of the imaging device; the one or more processors are to cause the interlaced activation by selectively activating one or more of the Tx channels and one or more of corresponding ones of the Rx channels in an interlaced pattern; and selectively activating includes performing an alternating activation of odd and even ones of the one or more of the Tx channels and a corresponding alternating activation of the one or more of corresponding ones of the Rx channels [[0053] alternatively the ultrasonic system 100 may be configured to implement a frame interleaved acquisition scheme, whereby the lower resolution volume (image) may be acquired in-between firings used to create the high resolution Volume (image). For example, one low resolution plane of the lower resolution volume may be acquired after each n planes of the high resolution volume.].
Regarding claim 4, Steen teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein processing the reduced power partial frame includes: performing intraframe interpolation on the reduced power partial frame to fill in the missing Rx scanlines with interpolated scanlines to generate an intraframe interpolated frame; and processing the intraframe interpolated frame to generate the reconstructed frame [[abstract] motion-compensated frame up-interpolations may be improved by use of lower resolution frames (or portions of frames), which may be used in generating information used in enhancing motion related features or characteristics of motion-compensated frames; [0054] low resolution volume is then used to assist an up-interpolation algorithm that creates intermediate high resolution volume(s) between the original ones. The lower resolution volume is thus never shown directly to the user.].
Regarding claim 5, Steen teaches the apparatus of claim 4, wherein the reduced power partial frame includes one of odd scanlines and missing even Rx scanlines, or even scanlines and missing odd Rx scanlines, and wherein processing the reduced power partial frame and the input frame includes [[0053]]: performing motion compensation to estimate a motion vector between the intraframe interpolated frame and the previous reconstructed frame of the previous round to generate a motion compensated frame, the motion compensated frame including even scanlines and missing odd Rx scanlines when the reduced power partial frame includes odd scanlines and missing even Rx scanlines, and includes even scanlines and missing odd Rx scanlines; and processing the motion compensated frame to generate the reconstructed frame [[0044] Some of the issues that may arise with frame interpolation may be addressed by use of motion estimation and motion compensation techniques, particularly to address such defects as blurring and ghosting. With motion compensated frame rate upconversion, movement estimates may be used when deriving an interpolated frame, to ensure that the frame is free of motion blurring or artifacts. For example, velocity (or motion) vectors may be determined or estimated for each point in the to-be-interpolated frame, to enable making better estimates of the position of the point in the interpolated frame.].
Regarding claim 6, Steen teaches the apparatus of claim 5, wherein performing motion compensation includes performing at least one of locally adaptive block matching or globally adaptive block matching [[0062] interpolated frame f. (or portion thereof) is generated based on a current frame f. and a previous frame f (or corresponding portions therein), using fixed point motion estimation (FPME), in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.].
Regarding claim 7, Steen teaches the apparatus of claim 5, wherein processing the motion compensated frame includes: merging the intraframe interpolated frame with the motion compensated frame to generate a spatial only estimate reconstructed frame, merging including filling missing Rx scanlines of the intraframe interpolated frame with corresponding scanlines of the motion compensated frame [[0050] motion compensated frame rate up-interpolation methods have been used in ultrasound imaging. These methods may use various techniques, including, for example, speckle tracking, feature tracking, multi resolution optical flow, energy minimization schemes, or a combination of such methods to create motion trajectories; [0066] interpolate images (particularly 3D images) of a complicated moving object, which may have varying particular speed and/or movement in each part, the interpolation may be made based on direct measurement or by combining the observation of different observation points. Thus, when attempting to determine the movement of particular object or structure in a frame (e.g., heart valve), where the movement of the valve may not be measured directly, and a plurality of different observation measurements may be used instead]; and processing the spatial only estimate reconstructed frame to generate the reconstructed frame [[0051] ultrasound imaging of certain objects or structures, is that it is may be hard (or even impossible) to acquire volume with high spatial resolution and high temporal resolution at the same time; [0052] thus, improving motion-compensated frame rate up-interpolation may be desirable or even necessary, particularly for 3D ultrasound images and/or with respect to use of ultrasonic imaging of particular objects or structures; [0054] low resolution volume is then used to assist an up-interpolation algorithm that creates intermediate high resolution volume(s) between the original ones. The lower resolution volume is thus never shown directly to the user.; [0055]].
Regarding claim 8, Steen teaches the apparatus of claim 7, wherein processing the spatial only estimate reconstructed frame includes performing temporal smoothing by blending the spatial only estimate reconstructed frame with the previous reconstructed frame to generate the reconstructed frame [[0008] bidirectional motion estimation a regular forward block matching may be performed first, and the result of that matching may then be used as a starting point for a new and limited search starting from a point in the frame to be interpolated. The result is later smoothed and overlap is used to improve robustness].
Regarding claim 15, Steen teaches the apparatus of claim 1, further including the memory, the memory coupled to the one or more processors [[0020] one or more of the functional blocks (e.g., processors or memories) may be implemented in a single piece of hardware (e.g., a general purpose signal processor or a block of random access memory, hard disk, or the like) or multiple pieces of hardware.].
Regarding claim 18, Sheen teaches the method of claim 17, wherein: the one or more processors are to be coupled to the transducer elements by way of transmit (Tx) channels and receive (Rx) channels of the imaging device; causing the interlaced activation includes selectively activating one or more of the Tx channels and one or more of corresponding ones of the Rx channels in an interlaced pattern; and selectively activating includes performing an alternating activation of odd and even ones of the one or more of the Tx channels and a corresponding alternating activation of the one or more of corresponding ones of the Rx channels [[0025] forming of images may be performed using channel combinations that may originate from more than one transmit event (e.g., synthetic aperture techniques); [0034] receive beamformer 120 may comprise suitable circuitry that may be operable to perform digital beamforming processing to, for example, sum the delayed channel signals received from the plurality of A/D converters; [0053] interleaved acquisition scheme].
Regarding claim 21, Steen teaches the computer-readable media of claim 20, wherein: the one or more processors are to be coupled to the transducer elements by way of transmit (Tx) channels and receive (Rx) channels of the imaging device; causing the interlaced activation includes selectively activating one or more of the Tx channels and one or more of corresponding ones of the Rx channels in an interlaced pattern; and selectively activating includes performing an alternating activation of odd and even ones of the one or more of the Tx channels and a corresponding alternating activation of the one or more of corresponding ones of the Rx channels [[0025]; [0034]; [0053]].
Regarding claim 22, Steen teaches the computer-readable media of claim 21, further including: in a linear mode, selectively activating one or more of the Tx channels in the interlaced pattern such an activated one of the one or more of the Tx channels generated ultrasonic waves in a same direction as a direction of ultrasonic waves generated by a previous activated one of the one or more of the Tx channels; and in a sector mode, selectively activating one or more of the Tx channels in the interlaced pattern such an activated one of the one or more of the Tx channels generated ultrasonic waves in a different direction as a direction of ultrasonic waves generated by a previous activated one of the one or more of the Tx channels [[0025]; [0034]; [0053]].
Regarding claim 23, Steen teaches the computer-readable media of claim 21, wherein processing the reduced power partial frame includes: performing intraframe interpolation on the reduced power partial frame to fill in the missing Rx scanlines with interpolated scanlines to generate an intraframe interpolated frame; and processing the intraframe interpolated frame to generate the reconstructed frame [[abstract][0054]].
Regarding claim 24, Steen teaches the computer-readable media of claim 23, wherein the reduced power partial frame includes one of odd scanlines and missing even Rx scanlines, or even scanlines and missing odd Rx scanlines, and wherein processing the reduced power partial frame and the input frame includes [[0053]]: performing motion compensation to estimate a motion vector between the intraframe interpolated frame and the previous reconstructed frame of the previous round to generate a motion compensated frame, the motion compensated frame including even scanlines and missing odd Rx scanlines when the reduced power partial frame includes odd scanlines and missing even Rx scanlines, and including odd scanlines and missing even Rx scanlines when the reduced power partial frame includes even scanlines and missing odd Rx scanlines; and processing the motion compensated frame to generate the reconstructed frame [[0044]some of the issues that may arise with frame interpolation may be addressed by use of motion estimation and motion compensation techniques, particularly to address such defects as blurring and ghosting. With motion compensated frame rate upconversion, movement estimates may be used when deriving an interpolated frame, to ensure that the frame is free of motion blurring or artifacts. For example, velocity (or motion) vectors may be determined or estimated for each point in the to-be-interpolated frame, to enable making better estimates of the position of the point in the interpolated frame.].
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.
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Steen (US 2016/0063742 A1) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Pelissier (US 2016/0278739 A1).
Regarding claim 16, Steen does not explicitly teach and yet Pelissier teaches the apparatus of claim 1, further including a wireless transceiver coupled to the one or more processors, the wireless transceiver to cause transmission of the reconstructed frame to the display [[0017][0018]].
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the invention with a reasonable expectation of success to modify the ultrasound probe of Sheen, with the wireless ultrasound probe with a processor and wireless transceiver for communication with an external display as taught by Pelissier so that the probe may be used with a troublesome cable (Pelissier) [[0002]].
Claims 3 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Steen (US 2016/0063742 A1) as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of Takemura (US 4,372,323 A).
Regarding claim 3, Steen does not explicitly teach and yet Takemura teaches the apparatus of claim 2, wherein the one or more processors are to: in a linear mode, selectively activate one or more of the Tx channels in the interlaced pattern such an activated one of the one or more of the Tx channels generated ultrasonic waves in a same direction as a direction of ultrasonic waves generated by a previous activated one of the one or more of the Tx channels; and in a sector mode, selectively activate one or more of the Tx channels in the interlaced pattern such an activated one of the one or more of the Tx channels generated ultrasonic waves in a different direction as a direction of ultrasonic waves generated by a previous activated one of the one or more of the Tx channels [[abstract] electronic linear scan mode and an electronic sector scan mode are selectively used individually or in combination under the control of a mode selection means provided for determining a scan mode for an ultrasonic probe consisting of a plurality of ultrasonic transducers the ultrasonic wave transmission and reception timing of which is controlled by a scanning control means in accordance with the determined scan mode; [col. 19-20 bridging] while in the above embodiment the image of one frame is formed by interlaced scanning, i.e., alternate scanning of the odd and even field, it is also possible to form one frame not by the interlaced scanning].
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the invention with a reasonable expectation of success to modify the odd/even interlaced ultrasound scanning as taught by Steen, with the linear mode and sector scan mode as taught by Takemura because since in either the electronic linear or sector scan system by driving a plurality of transducers at a time the width of the beam itself is increased to deteriorate the lateral resolution, it has been known in practice to provide what is called electronic focusing (Takemura) [[col. 2:10-20]].
Regarding claim 19, Steen does not explicitly teach and yet Takemura teaches the method of claim 18, further including: in a linear mode, selectively activating one or more of the Tx channels in the interlaced pattern such an activated one of the one or more of the Tx channels generated ultrasonic waves in a same direction as a direction of ultrasonic waves generated by a previous activated one of the one or more of the Tx channels; and in a sector mode, selectively activating one or more of the Tx channels in the interlaced pattern such an activated one of the one or more of the Tx channels generated ultrasonic waves in a different direction as a direction of ultrasonic waves generated by a previous activated one of the one or more of the Tx channels [[abstract] electronic linear scan mode and an electronic sector scan mode are selectively used individually or in combination under the control of a mode selection means provided for determining a scan mode for an ultrasonic probe consisting of a plurality of ultrasonic transducers the ultrasonic wave transmission and reception timing of which is controlled by a scanning control means in accordance with the determined scan mode; [col. 19-20 bridging] while in the above embodiment the image of one frame is formed by interlaced scanning, i.e., alternate scanning of the odd and even field, it is also possible to form one frame not by the interlaced scanning].
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the invention with a reasonable expectation of success to modify the odd/even interlaced ultrasound scanning as taught by Steen, with the linear mode and sector scan mode as taught by Takemura because since in either the electronic linear or sector scan system by driving a plurality of transducers at a time the width of the beam itself is increased to deteriorate the lateral resolution, it has been known in practice to provide what is called electronic focusing (Takemura) [[col. 2:10-20]].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 9-14 and 25 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: please see below, and note that Takemura (US 4,372,323) describes an ultrasonic probe with an electronic linear scan mode and sector scan mode [[abstract]].
Regarding claim 9, the closest prior art of record does not appear to teach the apparatus of claim 5, wherein: the motion vector corresponds to an estimated motion vector v* between subregions g1 (x) of the previous reconstructed frame and subregions g2 (x) of the intraframe interpolated frame, v*being given by: v*= arg max g92(x) - g1(x - v)|pwherein x denotes a pixel vEW coordinate of an image subregion, W denotes a spatial window within which a solution for v is searched, B denotes an index set of pixels within a block, and p denotes an error norm equal to 1 or 2; andblock matching further includes performing global block matching using a horizontal search only where an entirety of the intraframe interpolated frame corresponds to g2(x).
Regarding claim 10, the closest prior art of record does not appear to teach the apparatus of claim 9, the one or more processors to, in response to a determination that v* exceeds a threshold value, set the reconstructed frame to correspond to the spatial only estimate reconstructed frame.
Regarding claim 11, the closest prior art of record does not appear to teach the apparatus of claim 9, the one or more processors to merge the intraframe interpolated frame with the motion compensated frame to generate a spatial only estimate reconstructed frame, merging including filling missing Rx scanlines of the intraframe interpolated frame with corresponding scanlines of the motion compensated frame by: segmenting a group R of scanlines of the reduced power partial frame linearly into a collection of S x Hb blocks b; for each block B and group R: defining a temporary macroblock array mb of pixel values in the intraframe interpolated frame that correspond to a region of the reduced power partial frame of which block B is a core; performing locally adaptive block matching between mb and the previous reconstructed frame to locate a best match, the best match corresponding to a macroblock region mbmatch of the previous reconstructed frame having a same pixel dimension as mb; setting the spatial only estimate reconstructed frame to correspond to the reduced power partial frame; and for each block B in the spatial only estimate reconstructed frame: assigning to block B pixel values from a core of mbmatch; and for columns in B corresponding to repeated receive scanlines, assigning a weighted average of pixel values of block B of the spatial only estimate reconstructed frame with corresponding pixel values in the intraframe interpolated frame.
Regarding claim 12, the closest prior art of record does not appear to teach the apparatus of claim 11, wherein, in a sector mode of operation of the imaging device, the one or more processors are to: perform the locally adaptive block matching in response to a determination that an average pixel value in mb is greater than a threshold; and use scan conversion to transform rectilinear formatted scanline data in the reconstructed frame to sector-mode formatted scanline data to generate the reconstructed frame.
Regarding claim 13, the closest prior art of record does not appear to teach the apparatus of claim 11, wherein performing locally adaptive block matching includes, for each macroblock mbk in an image frame, where k is a number designating each macroblock:computing a total intensity in a prior macroblock mbk_1 of the image frame;in response to a determination that the intensity is above a first threshold and that mbk is not a first macroblock in a given row of the image, assigning a first spatial window W1 to correspond to a value of a spatial window W within which a solution for a motion vector v is to be searched;in response to a determination that the intensity is not above a first threshold or that mbk is not a first macroblock in a given row of the image, assigning a second spatial window W2 to correspond to a value of a spatial window W within which a solution for a motion vector v is to be searched;determining an estimated motion vector vk* using: vZ= arg max ExEMg (x) - vEWmbk_1(x - v)Ip wherein x denotes a pixel coordinate of an image subregion, W denotes the spatial window within which a solution for v is searched, Bk denotes an index set of pixels within a macroblock k, and p denotes an error norm equal to 1 or 2, and wherein matching error mbk-1(x in response to a determination that E is larger than a second threshold, assigning pixel values from the intraframe interpolated frame to corresponding pixels in a core of mbk; andin response to a determination that E is not larger than a second threshold, assigning to a core of mbk values in a core of mbk_1(x - vZ
Regarding claim 14, the closest prior art of record does not appear to teach the apparatus of claim 13, wherein, in a sector mode of the imaging device, the one or more processors are to, in response to a determination that E is not larger than a second threshold: measure E for four values of v that are offset half of a pixel in either a horizontal direction or a vertical direction; and assign to the core of mbk values in the core of mbk_1(x-vZ).
Regarding claim 25, the closest prior art of record does not appear to teach the computer-readable media of claim 24, wherein: the motion vector corresponds to an estimated motion vector v* between subregions g1(x) of the previous reconstructed frame and subregions g2 (x) of the intraframe interpolated frame, v*being given by: v*= arg max g92(x) - g1(x - v)|p wherein x denotes a pixel coordinate of an image subregion, vEW W denotes a spatial window within which a solution for v is searched, B denotes an index set of pixels within a block, and p denotes an error norm equal to 1 or 2; and block matching further includes performing global block matching using a horizontal search only where an entirety of the intraframe interpolated frame corresponds to g2(x).
Conclusion
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/JONATHAN D ARMSTRONG/ Examiner, Art Unit 3645
