Ex Parte Chen et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 16, 2015

11654922 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 16, 2015)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
111654,922 01/18/2007
41838 7590 12/17/2015
GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY (PCPI)
C/O FLETCHER YODER
P. 0. BOX 692289
HOUSTON, TX 77269-2289
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Yao Chen
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.
185717-1
(GERD:0699/YOD)
EXAMINER
WU, TONGE
8644
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3766
MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE
12/17/2015 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte YAO CHEN, KAI THOMENIUS,
YONGSHENG YANG, PEI TENG, YONG ZHANG,
JIAN ZHOU, and JOEL XUE
Appeal2013-005627
Application 11/654,922
Technology Center 3700
Before, MICHELLE R. OSINSKI, JILL D. HILL, and MARK A. GEIER,
Administrative Patent Judges.
OSINSKI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Yao Chen et al. (Appellants) 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the
Examiner's final decision to reject claims 1-3 and 5-29. 2 We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We REVERSE.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is General Electric
Company. App. Br. 2.
2 Claim 4 is cancelled. App. Br., Claims App.
Appeal2013-005627
Application 11/654,922
THE CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Claims 1, 15, and 23 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1,
reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter on appeal.
1. A method for determining cellular electrical potentials,
compnsmg:
deriving an electrical source model and an electrical
conduction model based on one or more structural images,
wherein the electrical source model and the electrical
conduction model are not updated based on subsequent
processes;
generating a state estimator using at least the electrical
source model and the electrical conduction model;
adjusting one or more parameters or states of the state
estimator based on a least one of a measured
electrocardiographic signal or a measured body-surface-
potential signal; and
determining the electrical potential of one or more cells
based on the one or more adjusted parameters or states.
EVIDENCE
The Examiner relied on the following evidence in rejecting the claims
on appeal:
Halmann
Bruder
Lett
He
us 5,151,856
us 5,634,469
US 2003/0018457 Al
US 6,856,830 B2
REJECTIONS
Sept. 29, 1992
June 3, 1997
Jan.23,2003
Feb. 15,2005
I. Claims 1-3, 6, 7, 15, 16, 18, 23, and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as anticipated by Bruder. Final Act. 3--4.
II. Claims 5, 19, and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Bruder and Lett. Id. at 4.
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Appeal2013-005627
Application 11/654,922
III. Claims 8-12, 14, 17, 20, 21, 25, 26, 28, and 29 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Bruder and He. Id. at
4--5.
IV. Claims 13 and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Bruder, He, and Halmann. Id. at 6.
OPINION
Rejection I
The Examiner finds that Bruder discloses all of the limitations of
independent claims 1, 15, and 23. Final Act. 3--4. In particular, the
Examiner finds that Bruder discloses generating a state estimator 16, 18
using an electrical source model and an electrical conduction model. Id. at
3. The Examiner's stated position is that "'state estimator' is a broad term
and is considered to encompass the positions and electrical potential
information being generated by the method of Bruder." Id. at 2.
The Examiner also finds that Bruder discloses adjusting one or more
parameters or states of the state estimator based on at least one of a
measured electrocardiograph signal or a measured body surface potential
signal. Id. at 3 (citing Bruder 4: 18-30). The Examiner's stated position is
that eliminating states having lesser correlation with the measured signals
meets the limitation of "adjusting" in that elimination is "essentially the
same" as "adjusting to a zero state or zero value." Adv. Act. 2; Final Act. 3-
4; see also Ans. 4 ("Bruder adjusts the c0 parameter from a list of possible
values to the value with the highest correlation by eliminating the lesser
corrected values. Since the claim as written only requires 'adjusting', the
adjustment of the c0 parameter in the course of searching for the best
estimate appears to read on the claim.").
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Application 11/654,922
The Examiner also finds that Bruder discloses determining the
electrical potential of one or more cells based on the one or more adjusted
parameters or states. Final Act. 4 (citing Bruder, Abstr., 5:7-8). The
Examiner's stated position is that "there is some electrical potential that is
determined, in order to localize where that electrical activity is coming
from" (Id. at 3) and that "the Examiner [i]s not equating the measured
surface signals 6 from the patient to the electrical potential of one or more
calls" (Ans. 4).
"A claim is anticipated only if each and every element as set forth in
the claim is found, either expressly or inherently described, in a single prior
art reference." Verdegaal Bros. v. Union Oil Co. of California, 814 F.2d
628, 631 (Fed. Cir. 1987). Anticipation is a question of fact. Finisar Corp.
v. DirecTV Group, Inc., 523 F.3d 1323, 1334 (Fed. Cir. 2008). Appellants
argue that Bruder merely discloses selecting one value from a set of
predefined or predetermined values "which represent values that arise from
modeled heart activities whose position in the heart is known" and are stored
in a data bank. App Br. 8. Appellants argue that, in particular, Bruder
discloses selection of a value that correlates the most with a measured value.
Id. The site of origin of an electrical heart activity can then be localized
because the selected value corresponds to a known position in the heart. Id.
Appellants argue that selecting a value does not disclose the claimed
limitation of adjusting one or more parameters or states of the state
estimator, under the plain and ordinary meaning of the language. Id.at 8-9.
Appellants' Specification describes "adjust[ing] the model parameters
of the electrical source model such that the simulated ECG and/or BSP
correspond with or match the respective ECG and/or BSP measurements."
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Application 11/654,922
Spec. il I 4; see also id. il 27. This is consistent with the ordinary and
customary meaning of the term "adjust," which is "to change so as to be
suitable to or conform with something else." The American Heritage
Dictionary of the English Language, available at
https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=adjust (last visited Dec.
14, 2015). In other words, the parameters or states of the claimed state
estimator are changed so that they are suitable to provide estimates that
better correspond to measured signals.
We determine that the Examiner's interpretation of the step of
"adjusting one or more parameters or states of the state estimator" as
extending to a circumstance in which selection of one value stored in
Bruder' s data bank that provides the highest correlation with the measured
value, and essentially results in the "elimination" of the remainder of the
stored position and electrical potential information values, is not reasonable.
Merely disregarding certain values in favor of the one value that provides
the highest correlation with the measured value does not result in any
change in the value causing it be suitable to or conform with something else,
and thus, cannot constitute "adjusting" under the plain and ordinary meaning
of that term consistent with the Specification.
Moreover, even to the extent that the elimination of stored position
and electrical potential information could be considered to change a value to
zero (Final Act. 2; Adv. Act. 2), the eliminated stored position and electrical
potential information is not then used to determine the electrical potential as
required by the claims. In other words, the claim requires the subsequent
step of "determining the electrical potential of one or more cells based on the
one or more adjusted parameters or states," whereas the electrical potential
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Application 11/654,922
in Bruder is based on the selected stored position and electrical potential
information, not the eliminated stored position and electrical potential
information. See App. Br. 8 ("[T]he 'emitted' output from [Bruder's
correlation block 16 and search for highest correlation block 18] is a state
relating to the location of heart activity and cannot be a zero state.").
Accordingly, for this additional reason, Bruder fails to disclose the steps of
adjusting one or more parameters or states of the state estimator based on
measured signals and determining the electrical potential of one or more
cells based on the adjusted parameters or states.
For the foregoing reasons, Appellants have shown that the Examiner
erred in finding that Bruder anticipates the subject matter of independent
claims 1, 15, and 23, and we do not sustain the rejection of independent
claims 1, 15, and 23, and claims 2, 3, 6, 7, 16, 18, and 24 which depend
therefrom, under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).
Re} ections II-IV
The Examiner rejects, under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a): claims 5, 19, and 27
as unpatentable over Bruder and Lett; claims 8-12, 14, 17, 20, 21, 25, 26,
28, and 29 as unpatentable over Bruder and He; and claims 13 and 22 as
unpatentable over Bruder, He, and Halmann. Final Act. 4---6. The rejections
of these claims rely on the Examiner's erroneous finding that Bruder
discloses adjusting one or more parameters or states of the state estimator
based on at least one of a measured electrocardiographic signal or a
measured body-surface-potential signal. See id. The Examiner does not find
that Lett, He, and/or Halmann cures this underlying deficiency.
Accordingly, for the reasons discussed supra, we do not sustain the
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Application 11/654,922
Examiner's rejection, under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), of claims 5, 19, and 27 as
unpatentable over Bruder and Lett; claims 8-12, 14, 17, 20, 21, 25, 26, 28,
and 29 as unpatentable over Bruder and He; and claims 13 and 22 as
unpatentable over Bruder, He, and Halmann.
DECISION
The Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-3, 6, 7, 15, 16, 18, 23, and
24 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) is REVERSED.
The Examiner's decision to reject claims 5, 8-14, 17, 19-22, and 25-
29 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is REVERSED.
REVERSED
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