Enlitic, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Apr 27, 2021

2021000373 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 27, 2021)

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.
15/683,113 08/22/2017 Kevin Lyman ENLIT00003 7062
34399 7590 04/27/2021
GARLICK & MARKISON
100 CONGRESS AVENUE
SUITE 2000
AUSTIN, TX 78701
EXAMINER
FURTADO, WINSTON RAHUL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3626
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/27/2021 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):
MMurdock@TEXASPATENTS.COM
bpierotti@texaspatents.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte KEVIN LYMAN,
DEVON BERNARD, LI YAO,
BRIAN BASHAM, and SCOTT McKINNEY
__________________

Appeal 2021-000373
Application 15/683,113
Technology Center 3600
____________________

Before JAMES P. CALVE, CYNTHIA L. MURPHY, and
AMEE A. SHAH, Administrative Patent Judges.

CALVE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the decision
of the Examiner to reject claims 1, 3–6, 8, 10, 11, 13–16, 18, and 20, which
are all of the pending claims.2 See Appeal Br. 5. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

1 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant
identifies Enlitic, Inc. as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 1.
2 Claims 2, 7, 9, 12, 17, and 19 are cancelled. See Appeal Br. 16–20 (Claims
App.).
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
1. A medical scan natural language analysis system,
comprising:
a medical scan database that includes a plurality of
medical scans and a corresponding plurality of medical reports,
wherein each of the plurality of medical reports includes natural
language text data describing a corresponding one of the
plurality of medical scans and wherein each of the medical
reports is mapped to at least one medical code of a plurality of
medical codes;
a processing system that includes a processor; and
a memory that stores executable instructions that, when
executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of
operations comprising:
generating a medical report natural language model
that includes an artificial neural network implemented via
the processor and is trained based [on] the plurality of
medical reports and further based [on] a plurality of
medical condition terms from a plurality of alias mapping
pairs, wherein each of the plurality of medical condition
terms are unique, wherein each of the plurality of medical
condition terms indicates a corresponding medical
condition and wherein each of the plurality of alias
mapping pairs includes a one of the plurality of medical
condition terms and a corresponding single one of the
plurality of medical codes that is a deterministic function
of the one of the plurality of medical condition terms and
wherein the plurality of alias mapping pairs includes two
or more alias mapping pairs that map a corresponding two
or more of the plurality of medical condition terms to a
same one of the plurality of medical codes;
receiving a first medical report that is not included
in the medical scan database via a network;
determining a first medical code of the plurality of
medical codes utilizing the medical report natural
language model on the first medical report by:
recognizing, via the artificial neural network
of the medical report natural language model, a first
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medical condition term of the plurality of medical
condition terms in the first medical report; and
determining the first medical code of the
plurality of medical codes, based on the plurality
of alias mapping pairs, wherein the determining
the first medical code includes identifying a first
alias mapping pair of the plurality of alias mapping
pairs that pairs the first medical condition term
deterministically to the first medical code; and
mapping the first medical code of the plurality of medical
codes and the first medical condition term of the plurality of
medical condition terms to a first medical scan corresponding to
the first medical report; and
transmitting the first medical condition term and the first
medical code of the plurality of medical condition terms to a
client device via the network to facilitate display by a display
device of the first medical condition term and the first medical
code in conjunction with the first medical scan.
REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 4, and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable
over Moehrle,3 Choi,4 and Kapit.5
Claims 3 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable
over Moehrle, Choi, Kapit, and White.6
Claims 5 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable
over Moehrle, Choi, Kapit, White, Lee,7 and Belden.8

3 US 2014/0219500 A1, published August 7, 2014.
4 Youngduck Choi et al., Learning Low-Dimensional Representations of
Medical Concepts, New York University, New York, New York. (“Choi”).
5 US 2008/0004505 A1, published January 3, 2008.
6 US 2012/0130734 A1, published May 24, 2012.
7 US 2013/0124527 A1, published May 16, 2013.
8 US 2010/0088117 A1, published April 8, 2010.
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Claims 8 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable
over Moehrle, Choi, Kapit, and Yiping.9
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Moehrle, Choi, Kapit, Abousy,10 and Lee.
Claims 11, 14, 16,11 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Moehrle, Choi, Kapit, White, and Biegert.12
ANALYSIS
Claims 1, 4, and 6
Rejected Over Moehrle, Choi, and Kapit
The Examiner cites Moehrle to teach a system, substantially as recited
in claim 1, and Choi to teach alias mapping pairs that map medical condition
terms to corresponding medical codes with some alias mapping pairs having
two or more medical condition terms that correspond to the same medical
code. Final Act. 3–12 (citing Choi, Tables 1, 6).13 The Examiner cites
Kapit to teach a first medical code with a first medical scan. Id. at 13.
Appellant argues that Choi does not teach unique medical condition
terms as claimed. Appeal Br. 8–10. Appellant asserts that Choi maps each
medical condition term to its own medical code. Id. at 12. Appellant argues
that Choi maps plural medical condition terms to the same medical ontology
category but that does not teach/suggest mapping multiple medical condition
terms to the same medical code as claimed. Id. at 12; Reply Br. 5–7.

9 CN 106295139A, published January 4, 2017.
10 US 2009/0177495 A1, published July 9, 2009.
11 We treat the Examiner’s inclusion of claims 14 and 16 with the rejection
of claim 1 (see Final Act. 3) as an administrative error and include claims 14
and 16 with the rejection of independent claim 11 from which they depend.
12 US 2017/0024517 A1, published January 26, 2017.
13 Refers to the pages of the Final Office Action, mailed April 24, 2020.
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We agree with the Examiner that Table 1 of Choi teaches unique
medical condition terms. Ans. 4–5. Table 1 of Choi lists medical concepts
for the neoplastic process of “carcinoma, non-small-cell lung” with similar
concepts of “small cell carcinoma of lung,” “carcinoma of lung,” “malignant
neoplasm of lung,” “adenocarcinoma of lung (disorder),” and “non-small
cell lung cancer metastatic.” Choi 46. Each medical condition concept is
unique, i.e., no two medical condition terms are the same, which satisfies
Appellant’s definition of “unique.” Appeal Br. 10. Each medical concept
has a unique medical code. Id. Table 6 of Choi lists medical conditions,
none of which are the same, and each of which is assigned a unique medical
code under ontology categories such as ICD9, LOINC, and NDC. Choi 49.
We agree with Appellant that Choi does not map two or more of the
plurality of medical condition terms to the same medical code as claimed.
Appeal Br. 12. The Examiner cites Table 6 of Choi to illustrate multiple
medical conditions, e.g., lupus erythematosus, Sicca syndrome, Raynaud’s
syndrome, with the same medical code, ICD9. Ans. 6–7 (citing Choi 49).
The Examiner determines that a single medical code does not specify if the
medical code “is supposed to mean the same category of medical code(s) or
the same medical code number where the latter seems to be the appellant’s
interpretation.” Ans. 7–8. The Examiner interprets the term to mean “each
of the medical code terms are mapped to the same or single category of the
plurality of medical codes.” Id. at 8. The Examiner finds the Specification’s
description of alias mapping pair 925 as including a medical condition term
922 and a corresponding medical code 924 such as a SNOMED code, a CPT
code, an ICD-9 code, an ICD-10 code, or another standardized medical code
treats the medical categories as medical codes. See id. (citing Spec. ¶ 166).
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Appellant responds that the claim language of a single medical code
must be interpreted to mean a single medical code and cannot be read as an
entire medical code category/ontology such as ICD9 in Table 6 of Choi as
the Examiner has done. Reply Br. 6. Appellant asserts that a skilled artisan
would understand a single “medical code” is different than an entire medical
code category/ontology such as ICD9. Id. at 7. Appellant argues that Choi
distinguishes between individual codes and an entire ontology category such
as ICD9 by mapping each medical condition term to a particular ICD9 code
in Table 6, rather than to the entire ICD9 category. Id.
The claim language indicates that a medical code pertains to a specific
medical condition term as a deterministic function. Claim 1 recites “each of
the plurality of alias mapping pairs includes a [sic] one of the plurality of
medical condition terms and a corresponding single one of the plurality of
medical codes that is a deterministic function of the one of the plurality of
medical condition terms.” Appeal Br. 15 (Claims App.). Thus, claim 1
links a single medical code to a specific medical condition term. Claim 1
does not link an entire code category such as ICD9, which comprises many
medical codes and functions, to a medical condition term. See Choi 47.
The Specification’s description of medical codes is consistent with the
claim language. Paragraph 166 indicates that each alias mapping pair 925
can include one medical condition term and a corresponding medical code
such as a SNOMED code, a CPT code, an ICD-9 code, an ICD-10 code, or
another standardized code used to label, annotate, or describe medical scans.
See Spec. ¶ 166. This description indicates medical codes are collected in
categories such as SNOMED, CPT, and ICT-9, and each medical condition
term is mapped to a particular medical code in one of these categories.
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Choi is consistent with this interpretation and understanding in the art.
Choi describes categories of medical concepts as International Classification
of Diseases (ICD-9, ICD-10) used for epidemiology and clinical purposes,
Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC) used to identify
medical laboratory observations, and National Drug Code (NDC) used as a
universal product identifier for human drugs in the United States. Choi 41.
Choi indicates ICD9 codes are widely used by physicians and coders
to record patient symptoms and diagnoses for purposes of submitting claims
for reimbursement and clinical research. Id. ICD-10-CM has almost 70,000
diagnosis codes. ICD-10-PCS has 70,000 procedure codes. LOINC has
70,000 codes. Id. NDC has over 360,000 codes. Id.
Choi thus teaches that the ICD9, ICD10, LOINC, and NCD categories
comprise many individual codes that are used to classify medical conditions
and drugs. Table 6 of Choi lists medical condition terms and their respective
medical codes for the ICD9 diagnosis category as follows:
695.4 (Lupus erythematosus)
710.9 (Unspecified diffuse connective tissue disease)
710.2 (Sicca syndrome)
795.79 (Other and unspecified nonspecific immunological findings)
443.0 (Raynaud’s syndrome)
Choi 49. The ICD9 category maps each medical condition to a unique code.
Choi, 41. We find no teaching in Choi, nor has the Examiner identified any
teaching in Choi, that maps multiple medical condition terms to the same
numeric medical code. Thus, Choi lacks “alias mapping pairs that map a
corresponding two or more of the plurality of medical condition terms to a
same one of the plurality of medical codes” where each medical code “is a
deterministic function” of a medical condition term as claimed.
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Interpreting the limitation “medical code” to include a category of
individual codes such as ICD9 is inconsistent with the language of claim 1
interpreted in light of the Specification’s description of medical codes and an
understanding in the art as evidenced by Choi. A category or collection of
medical codes for an ontology is not a medical code.
Thus, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1, or claims 4 and 6,
which depend therefrom.
Claims 11, 14, 16, and 20
Rejected Over Moehrle, Choi, Kapit, White, and Biegert
Independent claims 11 and 20 each recite “wherein the plurality of
alias mapping pairs includes two or more alias mapping pairs that map a
corresponding two or more of the plurality of medical conditions terms to a
same one of the plurality of medical codes.” Appeal Br. 18, 21 (Claims
App.). The Examiner relies on Moehrle, Choi, and Kapit to teach features in
claims 11 and 20 that are recited in claim 1, White to teach medical codes
mapped to sets of medical reports, and Biegert to teach generating a medical
report natural language model with an artificial neural network. See Final
Act. 27–30. Thus, the Examiner relies on Choi to teach alias mapping pairs
that map two or more medical condition terms to the same medical code. Id.
Appellant argues that White and Biegert do not cure the defects of
Moehrle, Choi, and Kapit discussed above for claim 1. Appeal Br. 12–13.
We agree with Appellant that Choi does not map two or more medical
condition terms to the same medical code for the reasons discussed above
for claim 1. Moehrle, Kapit, White, and Biegert do not cure this deficiency.
Thus, we do not sustain the rejection of independent claims 11 and 20,
or claims 14 and 16, which depend therefrom.
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Dependent Claims 3, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, and 18
Appellant argues that claims 3, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, and 18 are patentable
because they depend from claims 1 and 11. Appeal Br. 13. The Examiner’s
reliance on Kapit, Choi, and other references to teach features of claims 3, 5,
8, 10, 13, 15, and 18 does not cure the deficiencies of Choi discussed above
as to claims 1 and 11. Thus, we do not sustain the rejections of dependent
claims 3, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, and 18.
CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claim(s)
Rejected
35
U.S.C. §
Reference(s)/
Basis
Affirmed Reversed
1, 4, 6, 103 Moehrle, Choi, Kapit 1, 4, 6
3, 13 103 Moehrle, Choi, Kapit,
White
3, 13
5, 15 103 Moehrle, Choi, Kapit,
White, Lee, Belden
5, 15
8, 18 103 Moehrle, Choi, Kapit,
Yiping
8, 18
10 103 Moehrle, Choi, Kapit,
Abousy, Lee
10
11, 14, 16,
20
103 Moehrle, Choi, Kapit,
White, Biegert
11, 14, 16, 20
Overall
Outcome
1, 3–6, 8, 10, 11,
13–16, 18, 20
REVERSED