Ex Parte Mabotuwana et al

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jan 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. § 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. § 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. § 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. § 102(b).
REVERSED
4