Ex Parte Visser et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 11, 2018

12739967 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 11, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/739,967 04/27/2010 Cornelis Pieter Visser
24737 7590 09/13/2018
PHILIPS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & STANDARDS
465 Columbus A venue
Suite 340
Valhalla, NY 10595
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.
2007P01420WOUS 4454
EXAMINER
NGUYEN, ANH TUAN V
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2618
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/13/2018 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):
patti. demichele@Philips.com
marianne.fox@philips.com
katelyn.mulroy@philips.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte CORNELIS PIETER VISSER and
HUBRECHT LAMBERTUS TJALLING DE BLIEK
Appeal 2018-002811
Application 12/739,967
Technology Center 2600
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JAMES R. HUGHES, and
CATHERINE SHIANG, Administrative Patent Judges.
SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1, 2, 4--9, and 11-16.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We reverse.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Koninklijke Philips
Electronics N.V. App. Br. 1.
2 Claims 3 and 10 have been previously canceled.
Appeal 2018-002811
Application 12/739,967
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants' invention relates to "automatic movie fly-path calculation
in a medical image dataset." See Spec. 1 :2--4.
Exemplary Claim
Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows:
1. An apparatus for processing of an image dataset
comprising an object, said apparatus comprising:
a segmentation unit comprising one or more processors
configured to perform image segmentation of said object,
a calculation unit comprising the one or more processors
configured to:
calculate a first location defining a first start point
of a first sub object of said object;
calculate a second location defining a first end
point of said first sub object;
calculate a third location defining a center point of
said image dataset;
calculate a first projected start point by projecting
said first start point onto a projection surface of a virtual
sphere using said center point, wherein the virtual sphere
is sized such that the segmented said object fits within
the virtual sphere and said center point is the center point
of the virtual sphere;
calculate a first projected end point by projecting
said first end point onto the projection surface of the
virtual sphere using said center point; and
calculate a path between said first projected start
point and said first projected end point along the
projection surface of the virtual sphere;
a movie creation unit comprising the one or more
processors configured to calculate at least two successive
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Application 12/739,967
images of the segmented said object fitted within the virtual
sphere from said path with a virtual camera moving on said
path between said first projected start point and said first
projected end point along the projection surface of the viltual
sphere, wherein each of said images of the segmented said
object fitted within the virtual sphere has a projection plane
oriented by a vector normal to the projection plane and the
projection plane further oriented by the vector extending from a
point on said path to the center point of the virtual sphere.
References and Rejections
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 2, 4---6, 8, 9, 11, and 13-15 under
35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Weber (Oliver M. Weber et
al., Whole-Heart Steady-State Free Precession Coronary Artery Magnetic
Resonance Angiography, MAGNETIC RESONANCE IN MEDICINE, 50: 1223-
1238, 2003), Wan (Ming Wan et al., Automatic Centerline Extraction for
Virtual Colonoscopy, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MEDICAL IMAGING, VOL. 21,
No. 12, December 2012, pp. 1450-1460), Kopelman et al. (US 6,664,986
B 1; issued Dec. 16, 2003) ("Kopelman"), and Zhang et al. (US
2008/0074489 Al; published Mar. 27, 2008) ("Zhang"). See Final Act. 2-
17.
The Examiner further added Iordanescu et al. (US 2005/0117787 Al;
published June 2, 2005) ("Iordanescu") to reject claim 7, and Raman et al.
(US 2005/0195189 Al; published Sept. 8, 2005) ("Raman") to reject claim
12 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a). See Final Act. 17-20.
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Application 12/739,967
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We concur with Appellants'
contention that the Examiner erred in finding the teachings of Weber, in
combination with Wan, Kopelman, and Zhang, teaches or suggests
"calculate a first projected start point by projecting said first start point onto
a projection surface of a virtual sphere using said center point" and
"calculate a path between said first projected start point and said first
projected end point along the projection surface of the virtual sphere," as
recited in claim 1. See App. Br. 7-8. Appellants also contend "Wan uses a
centerline through a colon as a fly path, and does not disclose projected start
and end points, or a sphere," which is not cured by the teachings of
Kopelman and Zhang. App. Br. 8. As Appellants also contend, the images
of Zhang are not along a fly path between the projected start and end points
because "Zhang is directed to generating a panoramic image by stitching a
series of images by precisely aligning and superimposing overlapping
sections of the images." App. Br. 9 (citing Zhang ,r 9).
In response, the Examiner finds Wan discloses a fly path of a virtual
camera between start and end points of a centerline of a colon. Ans. 3
(citing Wan Fig. 3; ,r 2 in§ 2D). The Examiner further explains:
In addition, Kopelman discloses a fly path of a virtual
camera on the surface of a virtual sphere to examine the outside
of a dental model within the sphere. See Fig. 4 of Kopelman
(reproduced below) and col. 4 11. 52-57. At the time of the
invention, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill
in the art to modify the virtual camera taught or suggested by
Weber in view of Wan to take images between corresponding
start and end points on a virtual sphere concentric with the heart
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Appeal 2018-002811
Application 12/739,967
as taught or suggested by Kopelman in order to examine the
outside of the vessel. As such, the corresponding start point of
the fly path on the virtual sphere equates to a projected start
point on a surface of a virtual sphere.
Ans. 4 ( emphasis added). The Examiner further finds "[ r ]egardless of the
fact that the images in Zhang are not of an object fitted within a virtual
sphere, one of ordinary skill in the art would have readily recognized that a
point on the centerline of the vessel could be projected onto the sphere using
the center of the sphere." Ans. 8-9.
Based on a review of Wan, Kopelman, and Zhang, we are persuaded
by Appellants' contention that the Examiner has not explained how the start
point and end point disclosed in Wan are projected onto the surface of the
virtual sphere that is at the center point of the dataset. As further pointed out
by Appellants (Reply Br. 4 ), the proposed modifications to Weber do not
result in a fly path between the projected start and end points on the surface
of a virtual sphere, as recited in claim 1, because "Wan discloses a fly path
along a centerline inside a colon lumen" and "Kopelman discloses well-
defined pre-set views of a virtual 3D dental model." See Wan Fig. 3;
Kopelman 5:9-15.
Therefore, Appellants' arguments have persuaded us of error in the
Examiner's position with respect to the rejection of independent claim 1 and
independent claims 13 and 14, which recite similar limitations. The
Examiner has not identified any teachings in the other applied prior art that
would make up for the above-mentioned deficiency. We therefore do not
sustain the rejection of claims 1, 13, and 14, as well as claims 2, 4--9, 11, 12,
15, and 16 dependent therefrom.
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DECISION
We reverse the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1, 2, 4--9,
and 11-16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
REVERSED
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