Ex Parte Zhang et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 7, 2014

12391666 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 7, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte HONGXUAN ZHANG, DETLEF W. KOERTGE, and
DENNIS STEIBEL JR.
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Appeal 2012-006281
Application 12/391,6661
Technology Center 3700
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Before ERIC B. GRIMES, ULRIKE W. JENKS, and
ELIZABETH A. LaVIER, Administrative Patent Judges.

LaVIER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

The Examiner finally rejected claims 1–16. Appellants seek reversal
of the Examiner’s rejections, pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a). We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
For the reasons set forth below, we REVERSE.
BACKGROUND
The Specification describes “a system for heart monitoring,
characterization and abnormality detection by deriving and characterizing an

1 According to Appellants, the Real Party in Interest is Siemens Medical
Solutions Health Services Corporation. (Appeal Br. 2.)
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entropy representative value of an acquired electrophysiological signal
within a time period comprising at least a portion of a heart beat cycle.”
(Spec. p. 1, ll. 7–10.) As the Specification notes, “entropy” in this context
“is typically used to characterize degree of signal randomness, which
typically corresponds to signal pattern and mode changes and is
quantitatively and qualitatively used for cardiac pattern recognition.” (Id. at
p. 7, l. 32–p. 8, l. 2.) Because life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia and
pathology events are often preceded by a period of cardiac signal and
electrophysiological activity variability that may last from seconds to hours,
instantaneous detection and analysis of these signals are useful for diagnosis,
detection, and prediction. (Id. at p. 4, ll. 20–27.)
Claim 1 is representative:
1. A system for heart monitoring, characterization and
abnormality detection, comprising:
an acquisition device for acquiring an electrophysiological
signal representing a heart beat cycle of a patient heart;
a signal processor for,
deriving an entropy representative value of the amplitude
variation of the acquired electrophysiological signal within a
time period comprising at least a portion of a heart beat cycle of
the acquired electrophysiological signal and
using a predetermined function to process said entropy
representative value and data representing said time period to
provide an entropy value; and
a comparator for generating data representing a message for
communication to a destination device in response to said
entropy value exceeding a predetermined threshold.
(Appeal Br. 12 (Claims App. (emphasis added)).)
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REJECTION
On appeal, the Examiner maintains the rejection of claims 1–16 under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Porta.2 (Ans. 4.)
DISCUSSION
Porta describes an “integrated approach to the complexity analysis of
short heart period variability series” using calculations of entropy and
entropy rate, and classifications of patterns. (Porta Abstract.) Appellants
argue that Porta fails to teach or suggest “deriving an entropy representative
value of the amplitude variation of the acquired electrophysiological signal”
as required by claim 1, because Porta analyzes variation in heart beat cycle
time, not amplitude. (Appeal Br. 7.) The Examiner responds that the beat-
to-beat analysis in Porta “reveals patterns detected based on peaks, i.e. max
amplitude of the R-R interval(s), at different heights” and thus provides an
entropy value of an amplitude variation as required by claim 1. (Ans. 6.)
Porta teaches measuring and analyzing variations in time intervals
between the R peak of each heart beat (Porta p. 1284), but this is not the
same as saying that Porta measures and analyzes the variation in amplitude
of those peaks. Further, Porta reports changes in amplitude of patterns
observed (id. at 1285) but these patterns appear to be derived from analysis
of “heart period variability,” i.e., variability in the length of the heart beat as
a function of time, not analysis of observed variations in amplitude of some
aspect of the heart beat. We thus agree with Appellants that in Porta, “it is
not the height of the peak that is used to detect[] the peak point and interval

2 Porta et al., Entropy, Entropy Rate, and Pattern Classification as Tools to
Typify Complexity in Short Heart Period Variability Series, 48 IEEE
Transactions on Biomedical Eng’g 1282–91 (2011).
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but the zero gradient point and that is independent of amplitude.”
(Appeal Br. 8.)
As Porta fails to teach or describe “deriving an entropy representative
value of the amplitude variation of the acquired electrophysiological signal”
as required by claim 1, the Examiner has not established a prima facie case
of anticipation of this claim. Porta is likewise deficient in teaching or
suggesting the corollary limitations of independent claims 14 and 16.
Accordingly, we reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–16 as
unpatentable over Porta.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–16 is reversed.

REVERSED

cdc