Surgery – Diagnostic testing – Detecting nuclear – electromagnetic – or ultrasonic radiation
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-14
2002-12-24
Lateef, Marvin M. (Department: 3737)
Surgery
Diagnostic testing
Detecting nuclear, electromagnetic, or ultrasonic radiation
Reexamination Certificate
active
06497664
ABSTRACT:
This application includes a microfiche appendix of 47 sheets of microfiche having 2,772 frames. A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by any one of the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
BACKGROUND
This invention relates to a medical diagnostic ultrasound system and method. Ultrasound systems generate a sequence of images representing a region of a body. Different processes and hardware are used to generate the images. Many of the processes and hardware components are divided into ultrasound subsystems. Each subsystem is typically implemented with an ASIC. The ASIC is designed to perform a particular process. The processes are determined in part as a function of the system architecture or ASIC based design.
The subsystems are connected to a back plane or common structure to form the ultrasound system. The ultrasound system typically is mounted on a large wheeled cart.
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention is defined by the following claims, and nothing in this section should be taken as a limitation on those claims.
By way of introduction, the preferred embodiments described below include a medical diagnostic ultrasound receive beamformer includes an upsampler upstream of a time delay device and a summer, and a smoothing filter downstream of the time delay device and the summer. The receive beamformer is automatically programmed into a gate array as a single-beam, dynamic-focus receive beamformer when the user selects B-mode and as a dual-beam, fixed-focus receive beamformer when the user selects color flow mode.
Further aspects and advantages of the invention are discussed below in conjunction with the preferred embodiments.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3603729 (1971-09-01), Sperber
patent: 4335427 (1982-06-01), Hunt et al.
patent: 4337481 (1982-06-01), Mick et al.
patent: 4431007 (1984-02-01), Amazeen et al.
patent: 4444196 (1984-04-01), Stein
patent: 4585008 (1986-04-01), Jarkewicz
patent: 4729379 (1988-03-01), Ohe
patent: 4750367 (1988-06-01), Bernatets
patent: 4751846 (1988-06-01), Dousse
patent: 4785818 (1988-11-01), Hardin
patent: 4846188 (1989-07-01), Yoshioka
patent: 4878115 (1989-10-01), Elion
patent: 4887306 (1989-12-01), Hwang et al.
patent: 4888694 (1989-12-01), Chesarek
patent: 5000182 (1991-03-01), Hinks
patent: 5040537 (1991-08-01), Katakura
patent: 5060515 (1991-10-01), Kanda et al.
patent: 5099847 (1992-03-01), Powers et al.
patent: 5103823 (1992-04-01), Acharya et al.
patent: 5142558 (1992-08-01), Franciose
patent: 5152290 (1992-10-01), Freeland
patent: 5181513 (1993-01-01), Touboul et al.
patent: 5215094 (1993-06-01), Franklin et al.
patent: 5233993 (1993-08-01), Kawano
patent: 5235985 (1993-08-01), McMorrow et al.
patent: 5251027 (1993-10-01), LaBeau
patent: 5255683 (1993-10-01), Monaghan
patent: 5325858 (1994-07-01), Moriizumi
patent: 5325859 (1994-07-01), Ishihara et al.
patent: 5345426 (1994-09-01), Lipschutz
patent: 5357580 (1994-10-01), Forestieri et al.
patent: 5388079 (1995-02-01), Kim et al.
patent: 5425366 (1995-06-01), Reinhardt et al.
patent: 5456257 (1995-10-01), Johnson et al.
patent: 5457996 (1995-10-01), Kondo et al.
patent: 5467770 (1995-11-01), Smith et al.
patent: 5469851 (1995-11-01), Lipschutz
patent: 5476096 (1995-12-01), Olstad et al.
patent: 5482046 (1996-01-01), Deitrich
patent: 5513640 (1996-05-01), Yamazaki et al.
patent: 5520187 (1996-05-01), Snyder
patent: 5530681 (1996-06-01), Bloom
patent: 5533510 (1996-07-01), Koch, III et al.
patent: 5544128 (1996-08-01), Kim et al.
patent: 5544655 (1996-08-01), Daigle
patent: 5555534 (1996-09-01), Maslak et al.
patent: 5564428 (1996-10-01), Soernmo et al.
patent: 5568813 (1996-10-01), Deitrich et al.
patent: 5570691 (1996-11-01), Wright et al.
patent: 5573001 (1996-11-01), Petrofsky et al.
patent: 5581517 (1996-12-01), Gee et al.
patent: 5595179 (1997-01-01), Wright et al.
patent: 5619995 (1997-04-01), Lobodzinski
patent: 5647360 (1997-07-01), Bani-Hashemi et al.
patent: 5653236 (1997-08-01), Miller
patent: 5666955 (1997-09-01), Kondo et al.
patent: 5722412 (1998-03-01), Pflugrath et al.
patent: 5735797 (1998-04-01), Muzilla et al.
patent: 5758649 (1998-06-01), Iwashita et al.
patent: 5784336 (1998-07-01), Gopinathan et al.
patent: 5797846 (1998-08-01), Seyed-Bolorforosh et al.
patent: 5825431 (1998-10-01), Walker
patent: 5873824 (1999-02-01), Doi et al.
patent: 5893363 (1999-04-01), Little et al.
patent: 5970025 (1999-10-01), Cole et al.
patent: 5971928 (1999-10-01), Dodd et al.
patent: 5993390 (1999-11-01), Savord et al.
patent: 6115626 (2000-09-01), Whayne et al.
patent: 6120449 (2000-09-01), Snyder et al.
patent: 6126601 (2000-10-01), Gilling
patent: 6126608 (2000-10-01), Kemme et al.
patent: 6231510 (2001-05-01), Negrin et al.
patent: 6241675 (2001-06-01), Smith et al.
patent: 6251073 (2001-06-01), Imran et al.
patent: 984463 (1982-12-01), None
Pridham and Mucci, Digital Interpolation Beamforming for Low-Pass and Bandpass Signals,Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 67, No. 6, pp. 904-919, Jun. 1979.
“The Flexibility of Configurable Computing,” Villasenor and Hutchings, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, Sep. 1998, vol. 15, No. 5, pp. 67-84.
Declaration of Stuart Carp (1 page).
Declaration of John Williams (7 pages).
“System Five—Crisp. Clear. Incomparable Cardiac Images,” <http://www.ge.com/medical/ultrasound/msusys5.html>, 2 pages, 1997-2000.
“System Five—A Better Way to Use Ultrasound Data,” <http://www.ge.com/medical/ultrasound/msu5dat.html>, 2 pages, 1997-2000.
“Perception Ultrasound,” <http://www.perceptionultrasound.com>, 2 pages, printed 2000.
Knell Christopher B.
Randall Kevin S.
Urbano Joseph A.
Wood Andrew J.
Ecton Inc.
Imam Ali M.
Lateef Marvin M.
LandOfFree
Medical diagnostic ultrasound system and method does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Medical diagnostic ultrasound system and method, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Medical diagnostic ultrasound system and method will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2951470