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 6 is objected to because of the following informalities: in line 3, duplication of the word “processing”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim is objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate of claim 1. When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 608.01(m).
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 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claim is directed towards an abstract idea that could potentially be performed as a mental process.
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 1-10, 13-16, 18, 20-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Machii (US 20230081693 A1).
As to claim 1, Machii teaches a medical information processing apparatus (detects the lesion from the medical image to be detected, using the selected lesion detection model; Abstract) comprising: an image acquirer that acquires a medical image (The processor acquires a medical image to be detected; Abstract and S200 Fig. 12); and a hardware processor that determines whether to perform lesion detection processing by a computer on the medical image (Image processing device; Fig. 2), wherein the hardware processor determines whether to perform the lesion detection processing based on at least a condition as to whether specific image processing has been performed (in which the apparatus identification information 68 is not acquirable; S202 Fig. 12), or determines whether to perform the lesion detection processing using a trained model (if it is not acquirable, go to general purpose lesion detection model, if not go through specific lesion detection model; Fig. 12).
As to claim 2, Machii teaches the medical information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the hardware processor outputs the medical image based on a determination of whether to make the determination (output detection result; S212 Fig. 12).
As to claim 3, Machii teaches the medical information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, the hardware processor acquires information on whether the specific image processing has been performed by supplementary information of the medical image or image recognition of the medical image, and the hardware processor determines whether to perform the lesion detection processing based on at least a condition of whether the specific image processing is performed using the acquired information of whether the specific image processing is performed (determine if the identification information 68 is acquirable; S202 Fig. 12).
As to claim 4, Machii teaches the medical information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, the hardware processor acquires information on whether the specific image processing has been performed from information included in a hospital information system or information included in a radiology information system (type classified by the manufacturer of the mammography apparatus 10 and the model of the mammography apparatus. Further, for example, in a case in which different types of image processing software are used in the mammography apparatuses or the corresponding consoles, the mammography apparatuses or the corresponding consoles may be different types. [0063]), and the hardware processor determines whether to perform the lesion detection processing based on at least a condition of whether the specific image processing is performed using the acquired information of whether the specific image processing is performed (determine if the identification information 68 is acquirable; S202 Fig. 12).
As to claim 5, Machii teaches the medical information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the trained model is the trained model using a data set in which at least the medical image on which the specific image processing has been performed or the medical image on which the image processing has not been performed is paired with a correct label (ground truth data; 65B Fig. 3).
As to claim 6, Machii teaches the medical information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the specific image processing is at least one processing selected from a group of processing including up-down and left-right inversion processing, rotation processing, black and white inversion processing, For Processing, bone-weakening processing, time-dependent subtraction processing, energy subtraction processing, outside-irradiation-field blackening processing, frequency processing of a certain intensity or higher (a process of performing frequency decomposition on a signal in the breast and comparing the means or variances of each frequency band; [0148]), addition of a digital marker, and addition of an annotation.
As to claim 7, Machii teaches the medical information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the hardware processor determines whether to perform lesion detection processing by the computer on the medical image based on at least one of the following conditions including, whether it is a standard imaging condition, whether the medical image satisfies a specific image quality condition (an image quality classification model 110; [0147]), whether a detection target site which is to be a detection target of the lesion detection processing is a defect, whether the medical image includes a foreign object which is not the detection target, and whether the medical image is an image imaged by a modality other than a specific modality.
As to claim 8, Machii teaches the medical information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the hardware processor determines whether to perform the lesion detection processing using a trained model using, as teacher data, the medical image including information on at least one of whether an imaging condition is a standard imaging condition, whether the medical image satisfies a specific image quality condition, whether a detection target site which is to be a detection target of the lesion detection processing is a defect, whether the medical image includes a foreign object which is not the detection target, and whether the medical image is an image imaged by a modality other than a specific modality (determine if the identification information 68 is acquirable; S202 Fig. 12).
As to claim 9, Machii teaches the medical information processing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein whether the standard imaging condition is, whether an inclination of the medical image satisfies a condition, whether the medical image is a portable imaged image, whether the medical image is an enlarged imaged image, whether the medical image is a spot imaged image, whether an imaging body position of a subject of the medical image satisfies the condition (In a case in which the apparatus identification information 68 is not acquirable, that is, in a case in which the mammography apparatus that has captured the radiographic image to be detected is unknown; [0120]), whether a dose information of the medical image satisfies a condition, and whether the medical image is an image in which moire occurs.
As to claim 10, Machii teaches the medical information processing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein whether the medical image satisfies the specific image quality condition is at least one of whether the medical image is a film digitized image, whether a resolution of the medical image satisfies a condition (reduces the resolution of the input image to reduce the size of the image is performed; [0077]), and whether a lossy compression processing is performed.
As to claim 13, Machii teaches the medical information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein whether the medical image is the image imaged by a modality other than a specific modality is whether the medical image is at least one of a tomographic image (a projection image obtained by tomosynthesis imaging, a tomographic image generated from the projection images, or the like; [0174]), an ultrasonic image (the medical image may be an ultrasound image or the like; [0174]), and a moving image.
As to claim 14, Machii teaches the medical information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the hardware processor determines whether to perform the lesion detection processing by the computer on the medical image based on whether the medical image has been imaged under a specific imaging condition other than an imaging direction or an imaging site (determine if the identification information 68 is acquirable; S202 Fig. 12).
As to claim 15, Machii teaches the medical information processing apparatus according to claim 7 wherein, the hardware processor acquires, from tag information of the medical image (ground truth label; [0064]), at least one information of whether the specific image processing is performed, whether it is the standard imaging condition, whether the medical image satisfies the specific image quality condition, and whether the medical image is the image imaged by the modality other than the specific modality, and the hardware processor determines whether to perform the lesion detection processing using the information acquired from the tag information (a projection image obtained by tomosynthesis imaging, a tomographic image generated from the projection images; the medical image may be an ultrasound image or the like; [0174]).
As to claim 16, Machii teaches the medical information processing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein, the hardware processor acquires, from image recognition of the medical image, at least one information of whether the specific image processing is performed, whether it is the standard imaging condition, whether the medical image satisfies the specific image quality condition (an image quality classification model 110; [0147]), whether the detection target site which is to be the detection target of the lesion detection processing is the defect, whether the medical image includes the foreign object which is not the detection target, and whether the medical image is the image imaged by the modality other than the specific modality, and the hardware processor determines whether to perform the lesion detection processing using the information recognized from the image recognition.
As to claim 18, Machii teaches the medical information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the hardware processor makes a determination corresponding to a type of the lesion detection processing (the lesion is determined using ground truth data, normal/malignant/benign; 65B Fig. 3).
As to claim 20, is it the same as claim 1. Please see above for detailed analysis.
As to claim 21, it is the method claim of claim 1, therefore analyzed the same. Please see above for detailed analysis.
As to claim 22, it is the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a program that causes a computer to perform claim 1 ([0182]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11-12, 17 and 19 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.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CLAIRE X WANG whose telephone number is (571)270-1051. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am-5pm.
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CLAIRE X. WANG
Supervisory Patent Examiner
Art Unit 1774
/CLAIRE X WANG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1774
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