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 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Savord (US 2019/0247019) in view of Wodnicki (US 2009/0182233).
Regarding claim 1, Savord discloses an ultrasound imaging system and method ([0019]: “form an image”), comprising: an array of transducer elements ([0019]: “two dimensional array transducer 12”); a plurality of receive circuits configured to provide one or more output signals, wherein the plurality of receive circuits comprise at least one input coupled to at least one transducer element of the array of transducer elements ([0021]: “transmit/receive (T/R) switches” have their own input junctions; [0023]: “elements of the matrix array transducer 101 are connected directly to element pads of the analog ASICs 102”); a plurality of delay circuits configured to output one or more delayed signals, wherein the plurality of delay circuits comprise one or more inputs coupled to at least one receive circuit of the plurality of receive circuits, and wherein the plurality of delay circuits are characterized by a plurality of time delay values ([0021]: “analog delays”; Fig. 4 and [0025]: “delay circuit 320” allows adjustment of delay values); and at least one multi-channel beamformer configured to (i) receive representations of a plurality of microbeamformed signals and (ii) output at least one representation of a beamformed signal, wherein the plurality of microbeamformed signals represent a combination of delayed signals from the plurality of delay circuits ([0019]: “microbeamformer”, “combining is done by coupling the delayed signals from the elements of the patch”).
Savord does not explicitly disclose that the plurality of time delay values are controllable or adjustable such that one or more points-of-focus characterizing the microbeamformed signals move along a line of sight.
However, Wodnicki teaches real-time adjustment of focal lengths through the adjustment of time delays for an ultrasound imaging system ([0009]). 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 delay adjustment of Wodnicki to the delay circuitry of Savord, as to provide, as Wodnicki states, “flexibility to generate a variety of images”, which would involve moving a focus along a line of sight.
Conclusion
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/JASON M IP/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3793
