KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N.V.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 27, 202014414922 - (D) (P.T.A.B. May. 27, 2020) Copy Citation 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. Appeal 2019-003262 Application 14/414,922 2 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 Appeal 2019-003262 Application 14/414,922 3 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 Appeal 2019-003262 Application 14/414,922 4 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). Appeal 2019-003262 Application 14/414,922 5 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 Appeal 2019-003262 Application 14/414,922 6 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. Appeal 2019-003262 Application 14/414,922 7 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 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation