Patents Examined by Frederick Wenderoth
  • Patent number: 12282080
    Abstract: Techniques, systems and apparatus are described for magnetic resonance imaging. A method includes generating an MRI image by processing a first image obtained by applying a first order of modules including at least a first control module at a first time point and a first labeling module at a second time point to a target object, wherein the first control module inverts a magnetization of the target object and a second image obtained by applying a second order of modules including at least a second labeling module at a third time and a second control module at a fourth time to the target object, wherein the second labeling module inverts the magnetization of the target object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 26, 2023
    Date of Patent: April 22, 2025
    Assignee: The Regents of the University of California
    Inventor: Jia Guo
  • Patent number: 12282270
    Abstract: A developer cartridge may include: a first gear having a small-diameter gear portion and a large-diameter gear portion; and a second gear including: a first columnar portion centered on a second axis; a second columnar portion having a smaller diameter than the first columnar portion; a first engagement portion extending along a portion of a peripheral surface of the first columnar portion and engageable with the small-diameter gear portion; a second engagement portion extending along a portion of a peripheral surface of the second columnar portion and positioned closer to a housing than the first engagement portion in an axial direction and engageable with the large-diameter gear portion; and a protruding portion protruding in the axial direction and rotatable together with the first engagement portion and the second engagement portion. The second engagement portion may engage the large-diameter gear portion after the first engagement portion engages the small-diameter gear portion.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 27, 2023
    Date of Patent: April 22, 2025
    Assignee: BROTHER KOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Keita Shimizu, Takashi Shimizu, Hideshi Nishiyama, Naoya Kamimura, Tomonori Watanabe
  • Patent number: 12276931
    Abstract: An image formation apparatus includes: an image former that forms an image on a recording medium delivered along a predetermined delivery path and outputs the recording medium; a first hardware processor that judges whether or not the recording medium is an envelope; a second hardware processor that acquires a basis weight of the recording medium; a third hardware processor that determines control for when an image is formed on the recording medium on the basis of a judgment result from the first hardware processor and a basis weight acquired by the second hardware processor; and a fourth hardware processor that controls operation of the image former on the basis of a determination result from the third hardware processor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 16, 2023
    Date of Patent: April 15, 2025
    Assignee: Konica Minolta, Inc.
    Inventors: Masahiro Nonoyama, Masahiro Kamiya, Katsuhide Sakai, Junichi Masuda, Taku Kimura
  • Patent number: 12270884
    Abstract: Lipid suppression in magnetic resonance imaging (“MRI”) is provided on a slice-by-slice basis using tailored local field control that is configured for lipid control for each slice in a planned slice prescription. Only those lipid voxels that fall within the bandwidth of the concurrent RF excitation pulse are targeted. Switched B0 offset fields are used to improve lipid suppression pulse performance by pushing water and lipids apart in the frequency domain. Multi-coil B0 shim arrays with rapidly switchable output currents that can be turned on during the lipid suppression pulse may be used. A convex optimization may be used to jointly solve for the shim currents and the lipid suppression pulse center frequency and bandwidth to optimize lipid suppression while minimizing water signal loss.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 5, 2023
    Date of Patent: April 8, 2025
    Assignee: The General Hospital Corporation
    Inventors: Kawin Setsompop, Jinmin Xu, Jason Stockmann
  • Patent number: 12265144
    Abstract: Nuclear spins are excited in a region of interest in an object under examination by a radio-frequency pulse. During at least one phase of the radio-frequency pulse, excitation fields are transmitted while magnetic field gradients are simultaneously applied so that the magnetization of the nuclear spins moves on a trajectory through a transmission k-space. In a first phase of the at least one phase of the radio-frequency pulse, the trajectory moves at a radial distance around the center of the transmission k-space. The radial distance corresponds to the radius of a sphere superimposed with at least one radial harmonic.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 30, 2023
    Date of Patent: April 1, 2025
    Assignee: Siemens Healthineers AG
    Inventors: Jürgen Herrler, Patrick Liebig, Rene Gumbrecht, Armin Nagel
  • Patent number: 12241951
    Abstract: A trustworthy component for a control path of a magnetic resonance apparatus and a magnetic resonance apparatus with at least one trustworthy component are provided. The trustworthy component is configured to be arranged in a control path of a safety-relevant function of a magnetic resonance apparatus, so that when the trustworthy component is arranged in the control path, the control path is, at least in parts, non-trustworthy.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 27, 2023
    Date of Patent: March 4, 2025
    Assignee: Siemens Healthineers AG
    Inventors: Thomas Beck, Swen Campagna
  • Patent number: 12241953
    Abstract: The following relates generally to accelerated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reconstruction. In some embodiments, a MRI machine learning algorithm is trained based on reference MRI data in non-Cartesian k-space. During the training, at each iteration of a plurality of iterations: (i) a non-Cartesian sampling trajectory ? may be optimized under the physical constraints, and/or (ii) an image reconstructor may be jointly iteratively optimized. Examples of the image reconstructor include a convolutional neural network (CNN) denoiser, a model-based deep learning (MoDL) image reconstructor, iterative image reconstructor, a regularizer, and an invertible neural network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 17, 2023
    Date of Patent: March 4, 2025
    Assignee: REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
    Inventors: Jeffrey Allen Fessler, Douglas Clair Noll, Guanhua Wang
  • Patent number: 12228628
    Abstract: In a method to improved positioning of slices in which measurement data is to be recorded, a planning image of an examination object is provided that has been distortion-corrected using non-linearity data describing a non-linearity of a gradient unit of the magnetic resonance system, a desired field of view and desired slices in the at least one planning image are selected, a measurement protocol to record the measurement data is loaded, switchable gradients and/or emittable RF pulses are adapted, as a function of the non-linearity data that has been loaded and the desired slices, such that the desired slices are excited despite the non-linearities of the gradient unit, and the loaded measurement protocol is performed in the selected field of view, using the adapted gradients to be switched and/or adapted RF pulses. The measurement protocol may include switchable gradients and the emittable RF pulses.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 30, 2022
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2025
    Assignee: Siemens Healthineers AG
    Inventor: David Grodzki
  • Patent number: 12222411
    Abstract: A method of setting an RF operating frequency of an MRI system (1) uses a first reference frequency signal, obtained from a geo-satellite positioning system, as a stable long term frequency reference. A second frequency source (24) is calibrated using the first frequency reference signal and the second frequency reference source (24) is then used as the master clock for the MRI system (1), for setting the RF operating frequency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 2021
    Date of Patent: February 11, 2025
    Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
    Inventors: Tim Nielsen, Christoph Günther Leussler, Peter Vernickel, Oliver Lips
  • Patent number: 12222412
    Abstract: A method for preparing magnetic resonance imaging of an object under examination is described. A plurality of representative pulse sequence segments are generated, each of which is associated with a reference gradient amplitude of the gradient pulse having the highest stimulation potential of the representative pulse sequence segment, and the stimulation potential of which is representative of a group of partially different pulse sequences. For each of the representative pulse sequence segments, a maximum gradient slew rate is determined for which a permitted maximum value of the stimulation potential is not exceeded. One of the representative pulse sequence segments is determined and selected, for a measurement protocol to be planned for a magnetic resonance imaging to be performed, according to the gradient amplitude of the gradient pulse having the highest stimulation potential of a pulse sequence segment of the pulse sequence on which the measurement protocol is based.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 1, 2024
    Date of Patent: February 11, 2025
    Assignee: Siemens Healthineers AG
    Inventors: Thorsten Feiweier, Max Müller, Adam Kettinger, Mario Zeller, Gudrun Ruyters
  • Patent number: 12216186
    Abstract: Scan time in diffusion-relaxation magnetic resonance imaging (“MRI”) is reduced by implementing time-division multiplexing (“TDM”). In general, time-shifted radio frequency (“RF”) pulses are used to excite two or more imaging volumes. These RF pulses are applied to induce separate echoes for each slice. Diffusion MRI data can thus be acquired with different echo times, or alternatively with the same echo time, in significantly reduced overall scan time. Multidimensional correlations between diffusion and relaxation parameters can be estimated from the resulting data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 3, 2021
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2025
    Assignees: The Brigham and Women's Hospital, Inc., Children's Medical Center Corporation
    Inventors: Lipeng Ning, Yogesh Rathi, Yang Ji, Borjan Gagoski
  • Patent number: 12210080
    Abstract: A method of operating a magnetic resonance scanner includes determining a radio frequency (RF) pulse to be transmitted to jointly homogenize a flip angle and a semisolid saturation that would result from magnetization of a sample to be scanned by the MR scanner using the determined RF pulse. The method also includes controlling an RF transmit coil of the MR scanner to transmit the determined pulse. Homogenizing both semisolid saturation and excitation properties of the RF pulse allows for improved magnetic transfer ratio imaging.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2022
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2025
    Assignees: King's College London, Siemens Healthineers AG
    Inventors: David Leitão, Raphael Tomi-Tricot, Joseph V. Hajnal, Shaihan Malik
  • Patent number: 12209866
    Abstract: One example includes an atomic sensor system. The system includes an optical source configured to provide an optical beam and a plurality of sensor cell systems. Each of the sensor cell systems includes sensing media enclosed in a volume therein. The system also includes optics configured to provide the optical beam to each of the sensor cell systems to provide interaction of the optical beam with the vapor in each of the respective sensor cell systems. The optical beam exiting each of the sensor cell systems is a respective detection beam. The system further includes a detection system comprising at least one configured to receive the detection beam from each of the sensor cell systems and to determine a measurable parameter based on an optical characteristic associated with the detection beam from each of the sensor cell systems.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 2022
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2025
    Assignees: NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION, FREEDOM PHOTONICS, LLC
    Inventors: Gordon Barbour Morrison, Michael D. Bulatowicz, Michael S. Larsen, Bob Buckley
  • Patent number: 12210081
    Abstract: In a motion correction method, a reference navigation image is obtained before MR data collection is performed on a target region of interest; in a process of performing the MR data collection on the target region of interest, motion detection is performed using a pilot tone signal received by a plurality of coils, and when a motion is detected, MR data collected when the motion occurs is marked as motion damage data; a post-motion navigation image is obtained when the end of the motion is detected by utilizing the pilot tone signal; registration is performed on the post-motion navigation image and the reference navigation image to obtain a motion correction parameter corresponding to the motion; and motion correction on the MR data collection is performed using the motion correction parameter. The method according to the present disclosure advantageously improves MR imaging quality.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2022
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2025
    Assignee: Siemens Healthineers AG
    Inventors: Fang Dong, Yan Tu Huang
  • Patent number: 12210079
    Abstract: Single-sided MRI apparatuses, systems, and methods are disclosed. A method can include transmitting a frequency sweep excitation pulse comprising a low-to-high frequency sweep; phase encoding during the frequency sweep excitation pulse; and tuning the amount of phase accumulated during the frequency sweep excitation pulse from adjacent slices in the slab. The frequency sweep excitation pulse can be a chirp pulse. Encoding in this way can prevent spin echoes from drifting and prevent k-space truncation in certain instances. Moreover, the resultant images can be combined more efficiently.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 9, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2025
    Assignee: Promaxo, Inc.
    Inventors: Muller Francis De Matos Gomes, Aleksandar Nacev
  • Patent number: 12204008
    Abstract: According to a method, first MR reference data and first MR imaging data are captured. Further MR imaging data is then captured. The capturing includes in each case generating at least one excitation pulse with a transmit coil of the magnetic resonance apparatus and irradiating the at least one excitation pulse into a patient receiving region, generating MR signals in a generation region using the at least one excitation pulse, and receiving the MR signals as MR data with a receive coil. A degree of difference that describes a difference between the generation region on capture of the first MR reference data and the generation region on capture of the further MR imaging data is determined. MR reference data is provided as a function of the degree of difference. An MR image is reconstructed based on the captured further MR imaging data and the provided further MR reference data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2025
    Assignee: Siemens Healthineers AG
    Inventors: Mario Zeller, Dominik Paul
  • Patent number: 12196834
    Abstract: A calibration system for magnetometers includes magnetometers configured to measure a magnetic field to be measured; a magnetometer holder fixedly mounted on the magnetometer holder; at least one magnetic field generating device having its position fixed relative to the magnetometers, and used to generate a calibration magnetic field distribution in a space to be measured; and a calculation device configured to calculate the magnitudes of magnetic field vectors at the positions of the magnetometers according to the calibration magnetic field distribution generated by the at least one magnetic field generating device in the space to be measured, receive measured magnitudes of the magnetic field vectors from the magnetometers, and calculate detection gain values of the magnetometers on the basis of the calculated magnitudes of the magnetic field vectors and the measured magnitudes of the magnetic field vector.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 30, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2025
    Assignees: COGNITIVE MEDICAL IMAGING LTD., INSTITUTE OF BIOPHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
    Inventors: Fan Wang, Yan Zhuo, Sijia Yang, Shunzi Wu
  • Patent number: 12196828
    Abstract: Methods and systems perform magnetic resonance fingerprinting (MRF) that provides tissue characterization through simultaneous quantification of water tissue properties and proton density fat fraction (PDFF), by using water-only and fat-only images from MRF. MRF is performed using rosette trajectories scanning k-space to effectively isolate water tissue and fat tissue, by separating these rosette trajectories into individual segments that are then analyzed to enable signals from fat tissue to be distinguished from water.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 18, 2022
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2025
    Assignee: REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
    Inventors: Nicole Seiberlich, Yun Jiang, Jesse Hamilton, Yuchi Liu
  • Patent number: 12196831
    Abstract: Methods and systems perform magnetic resonance fingerprinting (MRF) by obtaining magnetic resonance data over a main field-of-view (FOV) and resulting from providing a magnetic resonance fingerprinting pulse sequence to a sample. The pulse sequence includes gradient waveforms and radio frequency (RF) pulses that have pulse sequence parameters specifically tailored for scanning, not the entire main FOV but rather a reduced portion of that main FOV. The methods and systems further include comparing the magnetic resonance data from the sample to a fingerprint dictionary of signal profiles that specifically correspond to the reduced portion of the main FOV and generating tissue property maps that correspond only to that reduced portion.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 18, 2022
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2025
    Assignee: REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
    Inventors: Vikas Gulani, Nicole Seiberlich, Jon-Fredrik Nielsen, Yun Jiang
  • Patent number: 12196829
    Abstract: A resonance circuit includes: an inductor formed along a surface of a first cylindrical form having a central axis; and a capacitor formed along a surface of a second cylindrical form having the central axis, wherein the inductor and the capacitor are electrically connected to each other to form a closed loop.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2022
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2025
    Assignee: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
    Inventors: Konami Izumi, Yutaka Fujii, Yu Suzuki