Ex Parte Mabotuwana et al

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardJan 2, 2019

14420815 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jan. 2, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 14/420,815 02/10/2015 Thusitha Dananjaya De Silva Mabotuwana 24737 7590 01/04/2019 PHILIPS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & STANDARDS 465 Columbus A venue Suite 340 Valhalla, NY 10595 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www .uspto.gov ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 2012P00067WOUS 9514 EXAMINER LU,TOMY ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2667 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/04/2019 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): patti. demichele@Philips.com marianne.fox@philips.com katelyn.mulroy@philips.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte THUSITHA DAN ANJA YA DE SILVA MABOTUW ANA, YUECHEN QIAN, MERLIJN SEVENSTER, and GABRIEL RYAN MANKOVICH 1 Appeal 2018-003495 Application 14/420,815 Technology Center 2600 Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and JENNIFER L. McKEOWN, Administrative Patent Judges. NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1, 3 through 10, 12 through 16 and 21 through 26, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b ). We reverse. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. App. Br. 3. Appeal2018-003495 Application 14/420,815 INVENTION The invention is directed to a system and method for annotating and retrieving content of medical images. Spec., page 1. Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and is reproduced below. 1. An annotation support system, the system comprising: at least one display device; at least one processor programmed to: determine a context of a current medical image from a current image study; compare the context of the current medical image to contexts of prior medical images from prior image studies; and display context relevant annotations and context relevant medical images from the prior image studies which match the context of the current medical study, wherein the context includes a modality of the current image study, an identification of an anatomic region within the current image study, and a viewing orientation with respect to the anatomic region. App. Br. 14 (Claims Appendix). REJECTION AT ISSUE2 The Examiner has rejected claims 1, 3 through 10, 12 through 16 and 21 through 26 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ I02(b) as being anticipated by Masumoto (US 2011/0075900 Al, published March 31, 2011). Final Act. 3--4. 2 Throughout this Decision, we refer to the Appeal Brief ("App. Br.") filed August 30, 2017, the Reply Brief ("Reply Br.") filed February 12, 2018, the Final Office Action ("Final Act.") mailed June 27, 2016, and the Examiner's Answer ("Ans.") mailed December 21, 2017. 2 Appeal2018-003495 Application 14/420,815 ANALYSIS We have reviewed Appellants' arguments in the Briefs, the Examiner's rejection, and the Examiner's response to Appellants' arguments. Appellants' arguments have persuaded us of error in the Examiner's anticipation rejection. Appellants argue the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 1, 10, and 24 is in error for several reasons. App. Br. 7 through 13. The dispositive issue presented by these arguments is, did the Examiner err in finding that Masumoto teaches, comparing contexts of medical images with those of other images, were the contexts includes a viewing orientation with respect to the anatomic region as recited in each of the independent claims? The Examiner finds that Masumoto teaches determining a context of an image and comparing the context of the image to other images. Answer 2 (citing paragraph 39 and figures 2, 6 through 8, 1 lA and 1 lB). Further, the Examiner finds that Masumoto teaches the comparison is to an anatomic region and a viewing orientation. Answer 2--4 ( citing the paragraph 39 and 97, discussion of the abdomen and orthogonal cross sectional image of the abdomen shown in the images depicted in Figure 1 lB). We disagree with the Examiner's findings, each of the independent claims recites a comparison of contexts of images where the context includes, a modality an identification of the anatomic region and a viewing orientation with respect to the anatomic region. We concur with the Examiner that Masumoto teaches a comparison of information concerning the anatomical region in the image. See e.g. Fig 2, and paragraphs 47, 48 and 50 and 54 of Masumoto discussing retrieving data of the specific regions of interest). However, we do not find that the cited paragraphs of Masumoto 3 Appeal2018-003495 Application 14/420,815 teach a comparison of contexts (information) concerning the viewing angle of the image. Paragraph 97 of Masumoto, cited by the Examiner discusses a cross section image and that data from other images can be brought up, but does not discuss a comparison of the viewing angle between the images is performed. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's anticipation rejection of independent claims 1, 10, 24, or of dependent claims 3 through 9, 12 through 16, 21 through 23, 25 and 26. DECISION We reverse the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1, 3 through 10, 12 through 16 and 21 through 26 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 102(b). REVERSED 4