Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 2, 2022

2021002207 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 2, 2022)

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. 14/514,164 10/14/2014 Rubendran Amarasingham PCCI-P0013US-NP 9031 134449 7590 03/02/2022 Grable Martin Fulton PLLC P.O. Box 2006 Azle, TX 76098 EXAMINER NEWTON, CHAD A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3686 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/02/2022 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): docketing@gchub.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte RUBENDRAN AMARASINGHAM, CONNIE V. CHAN, KIMBERLY P. GERRA, ADEOLA O. JAIYEOLA, HEATHER S. KUPERSZTOCH, GEORGE R. OLIVER, ANAND R. SHAH, ALEXANDER S. TOWNES JR., JENNIFER Y. WILSON, and KRISTIN S. ALVAREZ ____________ Appeal 2021-002207 Application 14/514,164 Technology Center 3600 ____________ Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, ANTON W. FETTING, and MICHAEL C. ASTORINO, Administrative Patent Judges. CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant1 seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1-28, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Dallas County Hospital District, a political subdivision of the State of Texas, d/b/a Parkland Health & Hospital system is identified as the real party in interest. (Appeal Br. 1.) Appeal 2021-002207 Application 14/514,164 2 SUMMARY OF DECISION We AFFIRM. THE INVENTION Appellant claims a computer system and more particularly an intelligent continuity of care information system and method. (Spec. ¶ 2, Title). Claim 1 is representative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. An intelligent continuity of care information system, comprising: a repository of patient data including clinical and social information associated with a plurality of patients updated and received from a plurality of clinical and social service organizations and data sources, the clinical information comprising a plurality of data being selected from the group consisting of: vital signs and other physiological data; data associated with physical exams by a physician, nurse, or allied health professional; medical history; allergy and adverse medical reactions; family medical information; prior surgical information; emergency room records; medication administration records; culture results; dictated clinical notes and records; gynecological and obstetric information; mental status examination; vaccination records; radiological imaging exams; invasive visualization procedures; psychiatric treatment information; prior histological specimens; laboratory data; genetic information; physician's and nurses' notes; networked devices and monitors; pharmaceutical and supplement intake information; and focused genotype testing; and the social information comprising a plurality of data being selected from the group consisting of: social, behavioral, lifestyle, and economic data; type and nature of employment data; job history data; medical insurance information; hospital utilization patterns; exercise information; addictive substance use data; occupational chemical exposure records; frequency of physician or health system contact logs; location and frequency of habitation change data; predictive screening health questionnaires; personality tests; census and demographic data; neighborhood environment data; dietary data; participation in food, housing, and utilities assistance registries; gender; marital status; education data; proximity and number of family or care-giving assistant data; address data; housing status data; social media data; educational level data; and data entered by patients; Appeal 2021-002207 Application 14/514,164 3 at least one predictive model using clinical and social factors derived from the patient data to extract both explicitly encoded information and implicit information about the patient's clinical and social information to identify patients requiring medical care and/or social services based at least in part on a risk score computed by the at least one predictive model; a computer operable to access the patient data associated with the plurality of patients, pre-process the patient data, and apply the predictive model to analyze the patient data for at least one particular patient; and a user interface operable to present at least one of a clinical view, social view, and patient view of the patient data and analysis associated with at least one particular patient to a user on a display screen according to a combination of the user’s preferences, the user’s role, and the user’s access credentials via a computing device, each view being composed of a template comprising a selected collection of a plurality of user-customizable and organizable widgets each presenting a focused subset of patient data and can be arranged on the display screen according to the user’s preferences. THE REJECTIONS 1. Claims 1-7, 10-17, and 20-26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 for being unpatentable over Avinash (US 2004/0122708 A1, June 24, 2004) in view of Wurster (US 2002/0116222 A1, Aug. 22, 2002), Pyhalammi (US 2011/0099487 A1, Apr. 28, 2011), and McClure (US 2014/0278474 A1, Sept. 18, 2014). 2. Claims 8, 18, and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for being unpatentable over Avinash, in view of Wurster, Pyhalammi, McClure, and Elton (US 2012/0231959 A1, Sept. 13, 2012). 3. Claims 9, 19, and 28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for being unpatentable over Avinash, in view of Wurster, Pyhalammi, McClure, and Settimi (US 2008/0010254 A1, Jan 10, 2008). Appeal 2021-002207 Application 14/514,164 4 FINDINGS OF FACT We adopt the Examiner’s findings as set forth on pages 3-16 of the Final Office Action. ANALYSIS 35 U.S.C. § 103 REJECTIONS Rejection of claims 1-7, 10-17, and 20-26 The Examiner rejected the above-referenced claims under 35 U.S.C. §103 over Avinash, Wurster, Pyhalammi and McClure. (Final Act. 3). We are not persuaded of error on the part of the Examiner by Appellant’s argument that Avinash does not teach using the predictive model to determine risks related to the patient population. In Appellant’s view, Avinash only teaches developing a predictive model but not using the model. (Appeal Br. 20-21). We agree with the Examiner’s response to this argument found on page 3 to 4 of the Answer and adopt same as our own. Specifically, we agree with the Examiner that Avinash does in fact teach using the predictive model to determine risks related to the patent population at paragraph 367: . . . a predictive model development module 370 further acts to convert the data and analysis into a representative model that can be used for diagnostic, planning, and other purposes. . .More generally, however, the data mining and analysis functions, in conjunction with the model development algorithms, may provide for identification of disease states and relationships between these disease states and available data which were not previously recognized. We are not persuaded of error on the part of Examiner by Appellant’s argument that Avinash is devoid of any disclosure of using any data that can be characterized as “social information” either to develop a predictive model Appeal 2021-002207 Application 14/514,164 5 or to process the data using the predictive model. (Appeal Br. 21). We agree with the Examiner that Avinash does in fact disclose data that can be characterized as “social information” by disclosing, for example, at paragraph 49 that the data used can include non-clinical data such as financial and human resource data, at paragraph 62 using other data that can be managed to improve patient care and at paragraph 68 that the data can include demographic data, food intake data, drug use data, food intake data. In any case, we also agree with the Examiner that Appellant is considering the teachings of Avinash separately as opposed to the combined teaching relied on by the Examiner. Non-obviousness cannot be established by attacking references individually where the rejection is based upon the teachings of a combination of references. The reference “must be read, not in isolation, but for what it fairly teaches in combination with the prior art as a whole.” In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). In this regard, McClure is relied on in addition to Avinash for teaching the social data in the claims. In regard to McClure, Appellant argues that there is no disclosure in this reference to clinical data. (Appeal Br. 21). However, as with the argument directed to Avinash, Appellant is relying on the individual teaching of McClure when the Examiner relies on the combined teachings of Avinash and McClure. The Examiner relies on Avinash for teaching using clinical data. (Final Act. 3-4). Appellant’s argument that none of the references teach a risk score based on clinical and social information fails for the same reason because it is an argument directed to individual references when the rejection is based on a combination of references. (Appeal Br. 22). Appellant’s argument that Wurster does not disclose a user interface in which each view on the user interface is composed of a selected collection Appeal 2021-002207 Application 14/514,164 6 of a plurality of widgets each presenting a focused subset of patient data fails for the same reason. (Appeal Br. 23). It is Pyhalammi, not Wurster, that is relied on for teaching templates comprising a selected collection of a plurality of user-customizable and organizable widgets that can be arranged on the display screen according to the user’s preferences. (Final Act. 6). In regard to Pyhalammi, Appellant argues that nowhere does Pyhalammi disclose that the widget API enables a customization of the user interface. (Appeal Br. 24). We agree with the Examiner’s response to this argument found on pages 6-7 of the Answer and adopt same as our own. In this regard, we find that Pyhalammi clearly discloses at paragraph 73 that the widgets may be organized according to user preference. Lastly, we are not persuaded of error on that part of the Examiner by Appellant’s argument that the Examiner utilized impermissible hindsight in rejecting the claims and used knowledge gleaned only from Appellant’s disclosure because Appellant does not explain why it is believed that the rejection is based in hindsight. (Appeal Br. 24). In view of the foregoing, we will sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. We will also sustain the rejection as it is directed to claims 2-7 and 10 which are dependent from claim 1 because the Appellant has not argued the separate patentability of these claims. We will also sustain the rejection as it is directed to the remaining claims because Appellant presents the same arguments regarding the patentability of the remaining claims as we have found unpersuasive as to claim 1. Appeal 2021-002207 Application 14/514,164 7 Rejection of claims 8, 18, and 27 Appellant relies on the arguments advanced in response to the rejection of claim 1 and therefore, we will affirm this rejection for the same reasons as detailed above. (Appeal Br. 32-33) Rejection of claims 9, 19 and 28 Appellant relies on the arguments advanced in response to the rejection of claim 1 and therefore, we will affirm this rejection for the same reasons as detailed above. (Appeal Br. 32-33) CONCLUSIONS OF LAW We conclude the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1-28 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1-7, 10- 17, 20-26 103 Avinash, Wurster, Pyhalammi, McClure 1-7, 10-17, 20- 26 8, 18, 27 103 Avinash, Wurster, Pyhalammi, McClure, Elton 8, 18, 27 9, 19, 28 103 Avinash, Wurster, Pyhalammi, McClure, Settimi 9, 19, 28 Overall Outcome 1-28 Appeal 2021-002207 Application 14/514,164 8 TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED