KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N.V.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

May 27, 2020

14414922 - (D) (P.T.A.B. May. 27, 2020)

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.
14/414,922 01/15/2015 Joost Frederik Peters 2012P00045WOUS 1013
24737 7590 05/27/2020
PHILIPS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & STANDARDS
465 Columbus Avenue
Suite 340
Valhalla, NY 10595
EXAMINER
RAPILLO, KRISTINE K
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3626
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/27/2020 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):
katelyn.mulroy@philips.com
marianne.fox@philips.com
patti.demichele@Philips.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte JOOST FREDERIK PETERS,
JOHANNES BUURMAN, ROBBERT CHRISTIAAN
VAN OMMERING, ZHARKO ALEKSOVSKI,
IWO WILLEM OSCAR SERLIE, and
RUDOLPH MARTHERUS
____________________

Appeal 2019-003262
Application 14/414,922
Technology Center 3600
____________________

Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, ADAM J. PYONIN, and
IFTIKHAR AHMED, Administrative Patent Judges.

AHMED, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1–9, 11–13, 18 and 20–25, which are all of the pending claims.
Claims 10, 14–17, and 19 have been cancelled. Appeal Br. 26, 27. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42(a). According to Appellant, the real party-in-interest is
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N. V. Appeal Br. 2.
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Application 14/414,922

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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claimed subject matter relates to “generating a report based on
input from a radiologist.” Spec. at 1.
ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM
Claim 1 is illustrative and reproduced below with certain disputed
limitations emphasized:
1. A system for generating a report of a medical condition of a
patient based on input from a radiologist in response to a clinical
query from a clinician, comprising:
an interface that receives data indicative of the clinical
query;
a reporting input element that enables the radiologist to
provide medical information based on an assessment of one or
more medical images of the patient;
a reporting output element that generates the report of the
medical condition of the patient based on the medical
information from the radiologist; and
a reasoning engine that analyzes the clinical query to
determine an anatomic context of the query, and a form and
content of at least part of the report, and identifies at least one
building block based on the anatomic context and the form and
content;
and
wherein:
the reporting input element is arranged for, based on the
building block, establishing a graphical user interface
representing a customized reporting interface based on the
anatomic context, for use by the radiologist in providing the
medical information; and
the building block provides an auto-completion tool to the
reporting input element to provide a plurality of selectable
completions on the graphic user interface based on the anatomic
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context and, upon selection of a selected completion, provides
the selected completion as at least a part of the medical
information provided by the radiologist.
REFERENCES
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art references:
Sherman US 9,152,760 B2 Oct. 6, 2015
Shanahan US 2003/0033288 A1 Feb. 13, 2003
Bay US 2009/0106047 A1 Apr. 23, 2009
REJECTIONS
Claims 1–7, 11–13, 18, and 20–25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as obvious over the combined teachings of Sherman and Shanahan.
Final Act. 4.
Claim 8 and 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over
the combined teachings of Sherman, Shanahan, and Bay. Final Act. 10.
ISSUE
Did the Examiner err in finding the combination of cited references
teaches or suggests “a reporting output element that generates the report of
the medical condition of the patient based on the medical information from
the radiologist,” as recited in claim 1?
ANALYSIS
Independent claim 1 recites “a reporting output element that generates
the report of the medical condition of the patient based on the medical
information from the radiologist.” Appeal Br. 24 (Claims App.) (emphasis
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added). Independent claims 18 and 20, the only other independent claims,
recite similar limitations.2
The Examiner finds that Sherman teaches or suggests this limitation.
Final Act. 4. According to the Examiner, “Sherman discloses using the data
(physical parameters of a user[’s] preferred set up, manipulations of data) to
generate a final report, where the report may be a medical report which
includes procedure, history, etc.” Id. (citing Sherman 11:42–64, 15:35–50).
Appellant argues that Sherman’s disclosure of “a report that includes
‘procedures, history, etc.’ cannot reasonably be said to correspond to a
report on the medical condition of a patient[,] and that ‘physical parameters
of a user[’s] preferred set up, manipulations of data’ cannot reasonably be
said to correspond to ‘medical information’ upon which the medical
condition of the patient is based.” Appeal Br. 16. According to Appellant,
“Sherman discloses a system that automates the creation of ‘hanging
protocols,’ which define the radiological images that are to be displayed for
conducting a radiological exam and displaying the result,” and these
protocols do not contain a medical condition of a patient based on medical
information from a radiologist. Id.
The Examiner counters by finding that Sherman discloses
a machine learning based hanging protocol configuration in a
picture archiving and communication system (PACS) which
includes automatically identifying a previously learned hanging
protocol saved for the user or a saved hanging protocol
associated with a prior image exam corresponding to the new

2 Claim 18 recites a method including a step of “generating the report based
on the building block and the medical information from the radiologist,” and
claim 20 recites a program that “generate[s] the report based on the building
block and the medical information from the radiologist.” Appeal Br. 27, 28
(Claims App.) (emphasis added).
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image [to be examined,] and facilitating display of the new image
exam based on the saved hanging protocol.
Ans. 3 (citing Sherman 2:43–57).
The Examiner further finds that Sherman discloses “an example in
which display protocols for a trauma case (medical condition of the patient)
is based on the medical information from the radiologist (the images of the
patient).” Id. at 4 (citing Sherman 19:46–65, Fig. 8). According to the
Examiner, the “display of the new image exam is interpreted as the reporting
output element,” and Sherman’s picture archiving and communication
system teaches or suggests the disputed limitation. Id. at 3–4.
We agree with Appellant that the Examiner has not sufficiently
explained how Sherman teaches or suggests generating the claimed report.
The Examiner’s interpretation of Sherman’s display of the new image exam
based on a saved hanging protocol as corresponding to the claimed “report”
reads out of claim 1 the requirement that the report be of a medical condition
of a patient and be based on the medical information from the radiologist.
The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim “is an interpretation
that corresponds with what and how the inventor describes his invention in
the specification, i.e., an interpretation that is ‘consistent with the
specification.’” In re Smith Int’l, Inc., 871 F.3d 1375, 1383 (Fed. Cir. 2017)
(citing In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997)). The
Specification lists the steps for “generating a report based on input from a
radiologist in response to a clinical query from a clinician.” Spec. 9:29–10:9
(referring to Fig. 2); 9:27–28 (“The reporting output 140 generates a report
142 based on the building block 182 and the medical information 122.”)
(referring to Fig. 1). The Specification further explains that “[f]or enabling
generating the report, a reporting input is provided which captures medical
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information being provided by the radiologist,” and that medical information
may be provided via dictation or typing by the radiologist. Id. 3:6–11
(emphasis added). The Specification therefore makes it clear that the
medical information included in the report relates to the medical condition of
a patient and comes from the radiologist. Moreover, claim 1 itself requires
that the “reporting input element . . . enables the radiologist to provide
medical information based on an assessment of one or more medical images
of the patient.” Appeal Br. 24.
The broadest reasonable interpretation of the claimed “report” is one
that is consistent with these disclosures. We are therefore not persuaded by
Examiner’s determination that Sherman’s display protocol for patient
images teaches or suggests the claimed reporting output element. The fact
that images discussed in Sherman are for a medical condition, e.g., a trauma
case, does not suggest that the display protocol of those images is a report of
the medical condition. See Reply Br. 3–4 (explaining that the diagnosis of
the trauma comes before the radiologist’s review of the images such that the
trauma case “is positioned ahead of a routine case”) (citing Sherman 19:43–
65, Fig. 8).
We, therefore, agree with Appellant that the Examiner has failed to
explain sufficiently how Sherman teaches “a reporting output element that
generates the report of the medical condition of the patient based on the
medical information from the radiologist,” as recited in claim 1. The
Examiner also does not rely on Shanahan to teach this claim limitation in
support of the obviousness rejection based on Sherman and Shanahan.
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Accordingly, given the record here, we reverse the rejections of
independent claims 1, 18, and 20, and their dependent claims 2–9, 11–13,
and 21–25.
DECISION
For the reasons above, we reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting
claims 1–9, 11–13, 18, and 20–25.
Claims
Rejected
Statute References Affirmed Reversed
1–7, 11–13,
18, 20–25
§ 103(a) Sherman, Shanahan 1–7, 11–13,
18, 20–25
8, 9 § 103(a) Sherman, Shanahan, Bay 8, 9
Overall
Outcome
1–9, 11–13,
18, 20–25
REVERSED