DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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 § 103
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 may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hoseit (US 2014/0275844, of record) in view of “An Open System for Intravascular Ultrasound Imaging” by W. Qiu et al. IEEE Trans Ultraso Ferro Freq Ctrl. Vol. 59, No. 10, pp.2201-2209, Oct. 2012 (Qiu) in view of Hubbard (US 2013/0303910).
Regarding claim 1, Hoseit discloses an intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging system, comprising: an IVUS imaging catheter configured to be positioned inside a blood vessel and comprising one or more ultrasound transducers ([0033]: “IVUS imaging devices”); and a patient interface module (PIM) ([0059]…[0063], [0060]: “BIB 800” is a patient interface module) comprising a field programmable gate array (FPGA) ([0060]: “one or more of the one or more processors is provided by a programmable processor, such as an FPGA”). Hoseit does not explicitly disclose that the FPGA itself is configured to operate as a trigger signal generator for, wherein, when the FPGA operates as the trigger signal generator for imaging of the blood vessel, the FPGA is configured to generate a first trigger signal to cause the one or more ultrasound transducers to emit, ultrasound transmit pulses with a first energy level and a first duration. However, Qiu teaches that an FPGA may be configured to control, at least, the timing and spectral characteristics of a triggering signal for IVUS imaging (p.2203: “B. Pulse Generator”). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to apply the FPGA triggering of Qiu to the IVUS of Hoseit, as to provide programmed triggering. Neither Hoseit nor Qiu explicitly disclose that the FPGA is used to separately trigger both B-mode imaging and color flow imaging at different energies/durations. However, Hubbard teaches a multi-modal IVUS imaging system that performs both Doppler color flow-related and B-mode imaging and is configurable through an FPGA (Fig. 12, [0053]…[0055]). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to apply the dual imaging capabilities of Hubbard to the system of Qiu and Hoseit, as to provide a robust dual mode IVUS imaging system which is configured through an FPGA.
Regarding claim 8, Hoseit discloses generating a circumferential image of the blood vessel based on at least a B-mode imaging or color flow imaging; and output the circumferential image of the blood vessel to a display ([0040], Fig. 2 shows a circumferential image obtained by an IVUS catheter). Qiu also discloses circumferential imaging of a blood vessel (Figs. 6-8).
Regarding claim 9, Hoseit discloses that the one or more ultrasound transducers comprise a rotational transducer or a transducer array ([0033]).
Regarding claims 2-7, Hoseit does not explicitly disclose both static and dynamically reconfigured portions to trigger separate imaging modes, or that the FPGA comprises dynamically reconfigurable interconnection and logic elements, with interconnected memory and processor components. However, both Qiu and Hubbard teach the conventional and known usage of FPGA for an ultrasound IVUS patient interface module (Qiu @ p.2203; Hubbard @ [0032]: PIM, [0054]: FPGA). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to apply the conventional use of FPGA to a patient interface module, as to provide the customization of an FPGA to an IVUS imaging catheter system.
Conclusion
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/JASON M IP/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3793