Ex Parte Vosniak et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 26, 201713093249 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 26, 2017) Copy Citation United States Patent and Trademark Office 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 APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 13/093,249 04/25/2011 KENNETH VOSNIAK 247764 (553-1666) 8367 45436 7590 06/28/2017 DEAN D. SMALL THE SMALL PATENT LAW GROUP LLC 225 S. MERAMEC, STE. 725T ST. LOUIS, MO 63105 EXAMINER WONG, LESLIE ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2164 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/28/2017 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): Docket @ splglaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte KENNETH VOSNIAK, SCOTT DAVID WOLLENWEBER, and ROBERT JOHNSEN Appeal 2017-003584 Application 13/093,2491 Technology Center 2100 Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, HUNG H. BUI, and JON M. JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judges. JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants seek review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1—6, 8—14, and 16—25, which are all the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm.2 1 Appellants identify General Electric Company as the real party in interest. (Br. 3.) 2 Our Decision refers to the Specification (“Spec.”) filed Apr. 25, 2011, the Final Office Action (“Final Act.”) mailed Nov. 3, 2015, the Appeal Brief Appeal 2017-003584 Application 13/093,249 CLAIMED INVENTION The claims are directed to systems and methods for providing a scan protocol to perform imaging scans. Spec. 11; Title; Abstract. The systems and methods compare a current scan protocol for a scan of a patient to a stored scan protocol, to identify and display differences between the protocols. Abstract. Claims 1, 9, and 17 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for displaying a scan protocol for an imaging system, the method comprising: receiving a current scan protocol for acquiring scan data of a patient, the current scan protocol for a scan of the patient to be performed, wherein the current scan protocol includes scan parameters related to acquisition of the scan data; accessing a stored scan protocol from a memory, the stored scan protocol including scan parameters related to acquisition of scan data for a previous scan of the same patient from the current scan protocol; comparing the current scan protocol to the stored scan protocol; identifying any differences based on the comparison of the current scan protocol to the stored scan protocol and generating a recommended scan protocol based on the comparison of the current scan protocol and the stored scan protocol; and indicating the differences of the current scan protocol and the stored scan protocol, and indicating the recommended scan protocol, on a display. (Br. 20 (Claims App’x).) (“Br.”) filed Apr. 18, 2016, and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”) mailed Nov. 2, 2016. 2 Appeal 2017-003584 Application 13/093,249 REJECTION & REFERENCES Claims 1—6, 8—14, and 16—25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Cohen-Solal (US 2013/0311472 Al, Nov. 21, 2013) and Gotman (US 8,712,798 B2, Apr. 29, 2014). (Final Act. 2-14.) ANALYSIS Claims 1—6, 8—14, and 16—24 Appellants state that independent claim 1 recites comparing current and stored scan protocols “of the same patient,” the protocols including respective “scan parameters related to acquisition of the scan data.” (Br. 7, 10-11,20.) The Examiner relies on both Cohen-Solal and Gotman for teaching Appellants’ claimed comparison of current and stored scan protocols. In particular, the Examiner finds Cohen-Solal discloses comparing current and stored scan protocols, the protocols including scan parameters related to acquisition of the scan data for the respective scans. (Final Act. 3 (citing Cohen-Solal 3, 6—7, 12, 14, 37); Ans. 14—15 (citing Cohen-Solal 38— 39, 48—51, 63, 70, 75).) And the Examiner finds Gotman discloses comparing current and stored scan protocols of the same patient, the protocols including scan parameters related to acquisition of the scan data for the respective scans. (Final Act. 5 (citing Gotman col. 3,1. 64—col. 4,1. 21, col. 6,11. 6-13 and 11. 23-33); Ans. 26-30).) Appellants argue Cohen-Solal and Gotman fail to disclose “comparing” current and stored protocols “of the same patient,” the protocols including “scan parameters related to acquisition of the scan data,” as recited in claim 1. (Br. 11—12, 15—16.) Appellants assert Gotman’s 3 Appeal 2017-003584 Application 13/093,249 “reviewed parameters ... are height and weight, which are, at most, parameters a protocol may be selected based upon, but are not scan parameters that are part of a scan protocol,” and “are not [parameters] related to acquisition of scan data.” (Br. 16.) Regarding the claimed “comparing,” Appellants assert Cohen-Solal “compares the execution of a given protocol with the protocol for different patients,” not “for the same patient” (Br. 12); and Gotman merely discloses “‘adjusting’ parameters by an operator” via a “side by side display . . . [of] only images, not protocols,” which “fails to teach comparing a current scan protocol with a stored protocol” (Br. 15—16). We do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive and commensurate with the scope of Appellants’ claim 1. Rather, we find the Examiner has provided a comprehensive response to Appellants’ arguments supported by a preponderance of evidence. (Ans. 3—34.) For additional emphasis, we note Appellants’ claim 1 does not exclude a patient’s height and weight and “parameters a protocol may be selected based upon” (see Br. 16), from the claimed “scan parameters related to acquisition of the scan data.” (Ans. 9, 18.) In addition, Appellants’ Specification broadly describes scan parameters related to acquisition of a protocol’s scan data as “various parameters, such as a height and weight of the patient, an injection site of a radioactive agent, an uptake time of the radioactive agent, and/or the acquisition and reconstruction techniques such as scan duration, reconstruction iterations, subsets, and filters,” and “various blood levels of the patient, for example, glucose levels of the patient.” (See Spec. ^fl[ 3, 22 (emphasis added).) Appellants’ Specification further provides that “the 4 Appeal 2017-003584 Application 13/093,249 parameters listed herein are exemplary only and are not to be considered limiting.” (See Spec. 122 (emphasis added).) Thus, we agree with the Examiner Gotman’s parameters—including “various scan parameters such as the kV and mA for the protocol selected by the protocol selection means. . . . scanning mode, scan duration, patient dose” and “parameters [that] were entered when the patient was previously scanned, e.g. age, weight”—are commensurate with the broad description of “scan parameters related to acquisition of the scan data” in Appellants’ Specification. (Ans. 13, 18, 28—30 (citing Spec. 13; Gotman col. 5,1. 61- col. 6,1. 36).) Additionally, we agree with the Examiner’s findings that “Gotman allows the physician to compare current and past scans of the same patient,” thereby teaching “comparing the current scan protocol to the stored scan protocol” for the same patient, as required by claim 1. (Ans. 13, 17—18, 29- 30 (citing Gotman col. 6,11. 6—36).) In particular, Gotman discloses the following: [A] pre-fetch means 152 searches a previous scan database 154 residing at the hospital database 18 for earlier scans of the same patient. The pre-fetch means 152 retrieves previous scans, which have been stored from previous exams from the same or different modality, into the workstation on which the physician examines the current scans of the patient. . . . Preferably, the earlier images are directly sent to the physician’s workstation and registered by using one of known pre-registration techniques to display earlier and current scans side by side on the monitor 22. The previously used parameters and protocols are offered to the operator to be used in conjunction with the protocol selection and parameter optimizing steps. The operator reviews what parameters were entered when the patient was previously scanned, e.g. age, weight, etc. Preferably, the operator uses the 5 Appeal 2017-003584 Application 13/093,249 same parameters or, as an alternative, the operator adjusts the previously entered parameters. (Gotman col. 6,11. 6—33 (emphasis added).) Appellants further argue the combination of Cohen-Solal and Gotman fails to disclose that “differences between the current scan protocol and the stored scan protocol are identified and used to generate a recommended scan protocol,” as required by claim 1. (Br. 11.) In particular, Appellants argue Cohen-Solal does not identify differences based on comparing protocols “of the same patient” as claimed, and “Gotman fails to teach either an identification of differences, an indication of the differences on a display, or a recommendation of a protocol based on the comparison on the display.” (Br. 12, 15-16.) We do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive because Appellants improperly attack Cohen-Solal and Gotman individually where the rejection is based on a combination of Cohen-Solal and Gotman. In particular, the Examiner relies on Gotman, not Cohen-Solal, as teaching comparing protocols “of the same patient,” as claimed. (Ans. 18.) And the Examiner relies on Cohen-Solal as teaching the claimed identifying differences based on a comparison, generating a recommended scan protocol based on the comparison, and indicating the differences and the recommended scan protocol on a display. (Ans. 14—17.) “[0]ne cannot show non-obviousness by attacking references individually where ... the rejections are based on combinations of references.” In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981). Additionally, we agree with the Examiner that Cohen-Solal identifies deviations between a prior scan protocol executed on previously scanned patients and a current protocol for a patient to be scanned, recommends a candidate updated protocol based on the deviations, and displays the 6 Appeal 2017-003584 Application 13/093,249 candidate updated protocol and the deviations’ information on a display. (Ans. 15—17 (citing Cohen-Solal Tflf 38—39, 48—52, 102, 122, Figs. 4—5).) Thus, Cohen-Solal teaches “identifying” and “indicating” steps based on “comparing,” and Gotman teaches “comparing” can be performed for protocols of the same patient. (Ans. 6, 10-11, 17—18, 23, 31.) Appellants disagree with the Examiner’s combination of Gotman with Cohen-Solal, arguing that the Examiner’s proposed modification of Cohen- Solal to “compare a current scan protocol for a particular patient with a stored scan protocol for the same patient” changes Cohen-Solal’s principle of operation and renders Cohen-Solal unsatisfactory for its intended purpose. (Br. 12—13.) Appellants argue Cohen-Solal’s principle of operation is “to work with standardized protocols” and protocols “for different patients,” by “comparing protocols for groups of patients and/or utilizing standardized protocols.” (Br. 12—13 (citing Cohen-Solal Tflf 28, 37—38, Fig. 11).) We do not agree. Rather, we agree with the Examiner that Cohen- Solal’s principle of operation is not limited to protocols of different patients, rather Cohen-Solal recommends a patient protocol by data mining protocol clusters for previously scanned patients based on similarity of medical concepts between the current patient and the previously scanned patients. (Ans. 22, 26 (citing Cohen-Solal Tflf 12, 63, 70, 75, Figs 4—5).) Additionally, Cohen-Solal’s protocol clusters could include past protocols of the current patient, if the current patient was previously scanned. (Ans. 10, 26.) Thus, we do not consider that modifying Cohen-Solal to compare and analyze protocols of the same patient, as taught by Gotman, changes the principle of operation or defeats the purpose of Cohen-Solal. 7 Appeal 2017-003584 Application 13/093,249 For these reasons, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1 and the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 9 and 17 on the same basis as claim 1 (see Br. 18—19). No separate arguments are presented for dependent claims 2—6, 8, 10— 14, 16, and 18—24. (See Br. 17—19). Accordingly, for the reasons stated with respect to independent claims 1, 9, and 17, we sustain the rejection of these dependent claims. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). Claim 25 With respect to dependent claim 25, Appellants contend Cohen-Solal does not teach or suggest “setting the current scan protocol as the recommended scan protocol if the scan to be performed is not a follow-up scan.” (Br. 17—18 (citing Cohen-Solal Tflf 125, Fig. 13).) Appellants assert Cohen-Solal is “silent with respect to determining if the scan is a follow-up scan in the first place.” (Br. 17.) We do not agree. Appellants’ arguments do not address the Examiner’s findings regarding what paragraph 13 of Cohen-Solal would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. (Ans. 35—36 (citing Cohen-Solal 113, Abstract).) Particularly, Cohen-Solal’s paragraph 13 teaches that a processor performs “at least one of generate an update recommendation for a protocol corresponding to one of the previously performed imaging protocols based on the obtained information or generate one or more candidate new imaging protocols based on the obtained information.” (See Cohen-Solal 113 (emphasis added).) Based on this disclosure, we agree with the Examiner that Cohen-Solal teaches or suggests setting a new current scan protocol as the recommended scan protocol if the scan to be performed is not a follow-up scan “corresponding to one of the 8 Appeal 2017-003584 Application 13/093,249 previously performed imaging protocols.” (See Cohen-Solal 113; Ans. 35— 36.) In light of the above, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 25. DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—6, 8—14, and 16-25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 9 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation