PATNEWS: Fairly trivial image software patent issued
Gregory Aharonian
Haven't sent one of these out in a while, but this one issued a few months
ago (5542003) rates a few chuckles when you read the first claim:
1. A method of displaying a medical diagnostic image comprising
the steps of:
(a) scanning an x-ray film image of a patient into a
digital representation of pixels values corresponding
to intensity of points on the x-ray film;
(b) displaying the pixels values on a workstation;
(c) selecting an area within the pixel values displayed
on the workstation;
(d) calculating a window width equal to difference between
MAX and MIN and a window level value equal to the window
width divided by 2 plus MIN, for all pixel values displayed.
Clauses (a), (b) and (c) are utterly trivial, while clause (d) is either
trivial or barely enabling. The paucity of prior art cited (the front page
is below) is an insult to thirty years of medical image processing.
Admittedly one of the more questionable patents this year, but with 8000+
software patents being issued in 1996, again over half citing no non-patent
prior art, well .... (paste in any one of my previous diatribes).
Greg Aharonian
Internet Patent News Service
====================
5,542,003
Eastman Kodak
Method for maximizing fidelity and dynamic range for a region of interest
within digitized medical image display
Issued - Jul. 30, 1996
Filed - Sep. 13, 1993
PRIOR ART
4,353,092 Oct., 1982 Bailey et al. 358/160
5,305,204 Apr., 1994 Ohhashi 364/413.13
Thurman Gillespy III, "Optimized Algorithms for Displaying 16-bit
Gray Scale Images on 8-bit Computer Graphic Systems," Journal of
Digital Imaging, vol. 6, No. 1 (Feb., 1993): 25-29.
Michael F. McNitt-Gray, Ricky K. Taira, Sandy L. Johnson, and
Mahmood Razavi, "An Automatic Method for Enhancing the Display of
Different Tissue Densities in Digital Chest Radiographs," Journal
of Digital Imaging, vol. 6, No. 2 (May, 1993): 95-104.
_________________________________________________________________
Abstract
A method and apparatus is presented in which a medical imagery
workstation provides an end-user interface which when activated,
windows and levels a whole image or a region of interest within the
image utilizing the pixel values within a selection area. The method
and apparatus customizes the pixel values when the entire image is
selected before calculating the window and levels to produce a higher
contrast, then redraws the entire image utilizing the newly calculated
window and level values. The present invention provides a method and
apparatus to enable an operator to define a region of interest, that
when activated, the image is redrawn utilizing only the pixel values
from the region of interest, maximizing the brightness and contrast of
the selected.
8 Claims, 14 Drawing Figures
_________________________________________________________________
[USPTO] [CNIDR]
David Wallen
> Haven't sent one of these out in a while, but this one issued a few months
> ago (5542003) rates a few chuckles when you read the first claim:
>
> 1. A method of displaying a medical diagnostic image comprising
> the steps of:
> (a) scanning an x-ray film image of a patient into a
> digital representation of pixels values corresponding
> to intensity of points on the x-ray film;
> (b) displaying the pixels values on a workstation;
> (c) selecting an area within the pixel values displayed
> on the workstation;
> (d) calculating a window width equal to difference between
> MAX and MIN and a window level value equal to the window
> width divided by 2 plus MIN, for all pixel values displayed.
>
> Clauses (a), (b) and (c) are utterly trivial, while clause (d) is either
> trivial or barely enabling. The paucity of prior art cited (the front page
> is below) is an insult to thirty years of medical image processing.
> Admittedly one of the more questionable patents this year, but with 8000+
> software patents being issued in 1996, again over half citing no non-patent
> prior art, well .... (paste in any one of my previous diatribes).
>
> Greg Aharonian
> Internet Patent News Service
> ====================
>
Thanks for posting this! At least we have humor, until that gets
a patent too.
Dave Wallen