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 § 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 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, 8-10 and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by D1 (WO 2020111085 A1).
With regards to claim 1, D1 discloses a treatment planning system for boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) comprising:
an image acquisition module configured to acquire a medical image of an irradiated body [0027];
a detecting module configured to detect an actual blood boron concentration of the irradiated body [0021, 0170] (Fig. 24b; S42);
a treatment planning module configured to generate a preset treatment plan on the basis of the medical image data [0027, 0160] (Figs. 2, 3, 24a; S31);
a processing module configured to acquire, on the basis of the preset treatment plan and a plurality of preset blood boron concentrations, a functional relationship between each of the preset blood boron concentrations and a dose rate [0163-0166] (Fig. 24a; S36-S38); and
a correction module configured to acquire corrected irradiation time on the basis of the functional relationship and the actual blood boron concentration [0176-0179] (Fig. 24b; S48-S51).
With regards to claim 8, D1 discloses further comprising a control module and a neutron beam irradiation module, wherein the control module is configured to control the neutron beam irradiation module according to the preset treatment plan and the corrected irradiation time to perform irradiation for treatment [0078, 0154-01556, 0168-0179].
With regards to claim 9, D1 discloses further comprising a placement module configured to place the irradiated body [0076-0078] (Figs. 10-11).
With regards to claim 10, D1 discloses a working method of a boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) system, comprising the following steps:
generating a preset treatment plan on the basis of medical image data [0027] (Figs. 2-3);
acquiring, on the basis of the preset treatment plan and a plurality of different preset blood boron concentrations, a functional relationship between each of the preset blood boron concentrations and a dose rate [0163-0166] (Fig. 24a; S36-S38); and
acquiring corrected irradiation time on the basis of an actual blood boron concentration and the functional relationship [0154-0156, 0170, 0176-0179] (Fig. 24b).
With regards to claim 12, D1 discloses wherein acquiring the corrected irradiation time specifically comprises: acquiring, on the basis of the actual blood boron concentration and the functional relationship, an estimated dose rate corresponding to the actual blood boron concentration; and correcting preset irradiation time on the basis of the estimated dose rate to obtain the corrected irradiation time [0154-0156, 0170, 0176-0179] (Fig. 24b; S42 and S48-S49).
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 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 of this title, 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 3-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1.
With regards to claim 3, D1 does not teach the claimed concentrations. However, it would have been well known, obvious, and predictably suitable to one with ordinary skill in the art to use the known concentration sequence since boron concentration is a result effective variable affecting dose rate and irradiation time, and selecting evenly spaced values within the known BNCT concentration range would have amounted to routine optimization.
With regards to claims 4-7, D1 does not teach the claimed dose rates. However, it would have been well known, obvious, and predictably suitable to one with ordinary skill in the art to combine non-boron dose components or background dose rate since those components represent the radiation dose produced independently of the boron capture reaction to calculate a total physical dose or total weighted dose.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 and 11 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:
None of the prior art teach the simulation portion and fitting portion as claimed.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARCUS H TANINGCO whose telephone number is (571)272-1848. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9am-6pm EST.
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/MARCUS H TANINGCO/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2884
