DETAILED ACTION
Notice of AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s Amendments and remarks dated 3/9/2026 have been considered. Claims 19-23 have been added. Claims 1-3, 5-9, 11-15, and 17-23 are pending.
Claim Objections. The previous objections to claims 1, 2, 8, and 14 are withdrawn in view of Applicant’s amendments to such claims.
35 U.S.C. 112(a) Rejections. While some of the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) are moot in view of Applicant’s amendments to the independent claims, some of the rejections are being maintained. See 35 U.S.C. 112(a) section below.
Response to Arguments
On page 9 of Applicant’s 3/9/2026 Amendment and remarks, with respect to the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(a), Applicant argues that the amendments to the independent claims overcome the written description rejections.
The examiner respectfully disagrees. While some of the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) are moot in view of Applicant’s amendments to the independent claims to delete the language identified as lacking written description support, Applicant did not address the majority of the rejections identified under 35 U.S.C. 112(a). Moreover, new claims 19-23 raise additional written description rejections. See below 35 U.S.C. 112(a) section for more detailed explanations of the rejections.
On pages 9-12 of Applicant’s 3/9/2026 Amendment and remarks, with respect to the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 103 in view of the AHMED and SHAH references, Applicant argues that such references do not teach the amended limitations of independent claims 1, 7, and 13.
The examiner agrees that the AHMED and SHAH references do not teach the newly-amended limitations of :
calculating, by the processing resource of the computer device, a prediction skepticism metric for the feature vector based on a probability distribution of classification probability outputs generated by the machine-learning model for the plurality of classes, wherein the prediction skepticism metric quantifies classification uncertainty using an entropy-based function or a probability margin between two highest classification probabilities;
selecting, by the processing resource of the computer device, a boundary condition vector having a highest degree of prediction skepticism metric, the boundary condition vector corresponding to maximum classification uncertainty proximate to a classification decision boundary;
The previous rejections under 35 U.S.C. 103 are hereby withdrawn.
On pages 13-14 of Applicant’s 3/9/2026 Amendment and remarks, with respect to the rejections of dependent claims under 35 U.S.C. 103, Applicant argues that such rejections are overcome for the same reasons explained with respect to the independent claims.
The examiner agrees. The rejections to all dependent claims under 35 U.S.C. 103 are hereby withdrawn.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
In claim 1, line 16, “classification probabilities; and” should read “classification probabilities; ” to remove the extraneous “and”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
Claims 1-3, 5-9, 11-15, and 17-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claims contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
In claim 1, the disclosure does not provide sufficient written description support for the “the boundary condition vector corresponding to maximum classification uncertainty proximate to a classification decision boundary” limitation. While paras. 0050-0051 generally describe that the “boundary condition vector” with the highest prediction skepticism is selected, the disclosure does not explain what a “classification decision boundary” means, and there is no disclosure about selecting such a “boundary condition vector” corresponding to a “maximum classification uncertainty proximate to a classification decision boundary.” While para. 0084 discloses selecting a “a boundary condition vector having the highest degree of skepticism (the least certainty)”, para. 0084 is similarly silent about selecting such a “boundary condition vector” corresponding to a “maximum classification uncertainty proximate to a classification decision boundary.”
MPEP 2163 II.B explains that “While there is no in haec verba requirement, newly added claims or claim limitations must be supported in the specification through express, implicit, or inherent disclosure.” Here, there is no express disclosure for this limitation. After review, the examiner has been unable to determine any implied or inherent disclosure that would demonstrate to a person of ordinary skill in the art that the inventor was in possession of this limitation as of the effective filing date of the application.
In claim 1, the disclosure does not provide sufficient written description support for the “generating, by the processing resource of the computer device, a policy update instruction encoding the selected boundary condition vector” limitation. While paras. 0034 and 0054 generally discuss enforcement of policies by NAC devices, the disclosure does not provide any description update mechanisms for updating the policies, much less specifically updating policies to encode “the selected boundary condition vector” and it’s unclear how such a policy would utilize such a vector.
MPEP 2163 II.B explains that “While there is no in haec verba requirement, newly added claims or claim limitations must be supported in the specification through express, implicit, or inherent disclosure.” Here, there is no express disclosure for this limitation. After review, the examiner has been unable to determine any implied or inherent disclosure that would demonstrate to a person of ordinary skill in the art that the inventor was in possession of this limitation as of the effective filing date of the application.
In claim 1, the disclosure does not provide sufficient written description support for the “transmitting the policy update instruction to a network access control (NAC) device that enforces connection policies for Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices to a protected network” limitation. While paras. 0034 and 0054 generally discuss enforcement of policies by NAC devices, the disclosure does not provide any description update mechanisms for transmitting policy updates.
MPEP 2163 II.B explains that “While there is no in haec verba requirement, newly added claims or claim limitations must be supported in the specification through express, implicit, or inherent disclosure.” Here, there is no express disclosure for this limitation. After review, the examiner has been unable to determine any implied or inherent disclosure that would demonstrate to a person of ordinary skill in the art that the inventor was in possession of this limitation as of the effective filing date of the application.
In claim 1, the disclosure does not provide sufficient written description support for the “causing the NAC device, in response to the policy update instruction, to update an embedded classification boundary used to authenticate or to quarantine IoT devices in real time” limitation. While paras. 0034 and 0054 generally discuss enforcement of policies by NAC devices, the disclosure does not provide any description about what an “embedded classification boundary” is and why such “embedded classification boundary” would need to be updated, and how such “embedded classification boundary” could be used to authenticate or quarantine IoT devices in real-time.
MPEP 2163 II.B explains that “While there is no in haec verba requirement, newly added claims or claim limitations must be supported in the specification through express, implicit, or inherent disclosure.” Here, there is no express disclosure for this limitation. After review, the examiner has been unable to determine any implied or inherent disclosure that would demonstrate to a person of ordinary skill in the art that the inventor was in possession of this limitation as of the effective filing date of the application.
In claim 1, the disclosure does not provide sufficient written description support for the “to improve network security without manual labeling of traffic data” limitation, which is a negative limitation. See MPEP 2173.05(i). Para. 0062 of the instant specification explains that “data labeling module 214 allows the one or more users to label the feature vectors manually or allow the labeling of feature vectors through other sources,” so the disclosure actually appears to support manual labeling. It is unclear where in the disclosure there is any support for how “without manual labeling of traffic data” results in improved network security. Because one of ordinary skill would not understand that the inventor was in possession of this limitation as of the effective filing date of the application, this limitation lacks written description support.
MPEP 2163 II.B explains that “While there is no in haec verba requirement, newly added claims or claim limitations must be supported in the specification through express, implicit, or inherent disclosure.” Here, there is no express disclosure for this limitation. After review, the examiner has been unable to determine any implied or inherent disclosure that would demonstrate to a person of ordinary skill in the art that the inventor was in possession of this limitation as of the effective filing date of the application.
Claims 2-3, 5-6, and 19-20 depend from claim 1, do not remedy the deficiencies of claim 1, and are therefore rejected for the same reasons explained with respect to claim 1.
Claim 7 corresponds to the method of claim 1, and is therefore rejected for substantially the same reasons explained with respect to claim 1.
Claims 8-9, 11-12, and 21 depend from claim 7, do not remedy the deficiencies of claim 7, and are therefore rejected for the same reasons explained with respect to claim 7.
Claim 13 corresponds to the method of claim 1, and is therefore rejected for substantially the same reasons explained with respect to claim 1.
Claims 14-15, 17-18, and 22-23 depend from claim 13, do not remedy the deficiencies of claim 13, and are therefore rejected for the same reasons explained with respect to claim 13.
In claim 19, the disclosure does not provide sufficient written description support for the “wherein generating the policy update instruction comprises converting the boundary condition vector into a network access control rule that defines an access decision for a device associated with network traffic represented by the boundary condition vector, the access decision comprising permitting, restricting, or quarantining the device based on the classification produced by the machine learning model” limitation. While paras. 0034, 0054, and 0077 generally discuss NAC devices, the disclosure does not provide any description about how a policy update instruction can be generated by “converting the boundary condition vector into a network access control rule that defines an access decision for a device associated with network traffic represented by the boundary condition vector”. There does not appear to be any disclosure about how selected “boundary condition vectors” are used with NAC devices at all.
MPEP 2163 II.B explains that “While there is no in haec verba requirement, newly added claims or claim limitations must be supported in the specification through express, implicit, or inherent disclosure.” Here, there is no express disclosure for this limitation. After review, the examiner has been unable to determine any implied or inherent disclosure that would demonstrate to a person of ordinary skill in the art that the inventor was in possession of this limitation as of the effective filing date of the application.
In claim 20, the disclosure does not provide sufficient written description support for the “the embedded classification boundary of the NAC device is updated in real time using the policy update instruction derived from the boundary condition vector while the machine learning model continues classifying additional feature vectors from the network traffic” limitation. paras. 0034, 0054, and 0077 generally discuss enforcement of policies by NAC devices, the disclosure does not provide any description about what an “embedded classification boundary” is and how such boundary is updated in real-time. Further, the disclosure does not provide any description about how the “policy update instruction” is “derived from the boundary condition vector”.
MPEP 2163 II.B explains that “While there is no in haec verba requirement, newly added claims or claim limitations must be supported in the specification through express, implicit, or inherent disclosure.” Here, there is no express disclosure for this limitation. After review, the examiner has been unable to determine any implied or inherent disclosure that would demonstrate to a person of ordinary skill in the art that the inventor was in possession of this limitation as of the effective filing date of the application.
Claim 21 corresponds to the method of claim 19, and is therefore rejected for substantially the same reasons explained with respect to claim 19.
Claim 22 corresponds to the method of claim 19, and is therefore rejected for substantially the same reasons explained with respect to claim 19.
Claim 23 corresponds to the method of claim 20, and is therefore rejected for substantially the same reasons explained with respect to claim 20.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-3, 5-9, 11-15, and 17-23 would be allowed over the prior art, provided that the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) are overcome.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Independent claims 1, 7, and 13 would be considered allowable, provided that the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) are overcome, because none of the references of record either alone or in combination fairly disclose or suggest the combination of limitations specified in the independent claims, including at least:
calculating, by the processing resource of the computer device, a prediction skepticism metric for the feature vector based on a probability distribution of classification probability outputs generated by the machine-learning model for the plurality of classes, wherein the prediction skepticism metric quantifies classification uncertainty using an entropy-based function or a probability margin between two highest classification probabilities;
selecting, by the processing resource of the computer device, a boundary condition vector having a highest degree of prediction skepticism metric, the boundary condition vector corresponding to maximum classification uncertainty proximate to a classification decision boundary;
The closest prior art of record discloses:
US 10320813 B1, hereinafter referenced as AHMED discloses techniques for “implementing security threat detection and mitigation in a virtualized computing environment.” (col. 3, lines 21-23). Machine learning techniques are used to extract features from network traffic patterns to classify behavior. (col. 6, lines 16-25 and col. 7, lines 12-18). Classifications are scored with a confidence level relating to the certainty of the classification. (col. 11, lines 21-56).
US 20180198786 A1, hereinafter referenced as SHAH discloses a network access control device (NAC) that updates policy status information related to a device and grants access to a network. (para. 0079).
Malinin, Andrey, et al. "Predictive uncertainty estimation via prior networks." Advances in neural information processing systems 31 (2018), hereinafter referenced as MALININ, discloses with respect to image classification, various uncertainty measures. (see section 4). MALININ further discloses utilizing uncertainty measures in conjunction with decision boundaries and entropy calculations. (section 5.1).
Sensoy, Murat, et al. "Evidential deep learning to quantify classification uncertainty." Advances in neural information processing systems 31 (2018), hereinafter referenced as SENSOY, discloses using a softmax output with respect to classification network, which outputs a probability distribution. (p. 2, section 1). SENSOY further discloses using entropy measurements to measure the uncertainty of predictions. (p. 7, section 5.1).
Li, Yuefeng, et al. "Enhancing binary classification by modeling uncertain boundary in three-way decisions." IEEE transactions on knowledge and data engineering 29.7 (2017): 1438-1451, hereinafter referenced as LI, teaches uncertainty boundaries with respect to text classification. (p. 1439, section 1). LI further discloses determining decision boundaries for text classification. (p. 1442, section 4.2).
However, the examiner has found that the distinct feature of the applicant's claimed invention over the prior art is the explicit claiming of the aforementioned limitations in combination with all the other limitations as specified in independent claims 1, 7, and 13. In particular, the examiner finds that Applicant’s following argument on page 11 of the 3/9/2026 Amendment and remarks to be persuasive:
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The examiner agrees that AHMED is concerned with a classification result, and searching for vectors corresponding to maximum classification uncertainty (least certainty as explained by para. 0084), is counter to AHMED’s teachings of searching for the highest confidence score. Moreover, the examiner finds that one of ordinary skill in the art would not have been motivated to combine the prior art references without the hindsight aid of Applicant’s disclosure. Therefore, because the prior art of record does not anticipate nor make obvious the limitations recited in independent claims 1, 7, and 13, such claims would be allowed over the prior art if the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) are overcome.
Each of the dependent claims would similarly be allowed for depending from an allowed independent base claim, provided that the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) are overcome.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL C LEE whose telephone number is (571)272-4933. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 12:00 pm - 8:00 pm ET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Omar Fernandez Rivas can be reached at 571-272-2589. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MICHAEL C. LEE/Examiner, Art Unit 2128
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