Notice of Pre-AIA or 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 .
Status of Claims
Claims 1-15 were previously pending and subject to a non-final Office Action having a notification date of October 16, 2025 (“non-final Office Action”). Following the non-final Office Action, Applicant filed an amendment on December 19, 2025 (the “Amendment”), amending claims 1, 5, 12, and 14 and canceling claim 10.
The present Final Office Action addresses pending claims 1-9 and 11-15 in the Amendment.
Response to Arguments
Response to Applicant’s Arguments Regarding Claim Rejections Under 35 USC §112
While some of these rejections are withdrawn in view of the Amendment, others remain as set forth below.
Specifically, it appears Applicant is asserting that claim 7 is clear because the claim recites a mean value of the biological variable among "a population, distinct from the patient." However, if the biological variable being analyzed in relation to the patient and the reference population is the "same biological variable" as noted by Applicant with respect to claim 6 (from which claim 7 depends), then it is still not understood how the biological variable can both "most contribute" to the difference while at the same time "not contribute to the difference." It is recommended that Applicant removes "for which said biological variable doles not contribute to a difference between the predicted age and the chronological age" to obviate this rejection (while keeping in mind that such change would necessitate further consideration in relation to prior art).
Response to Applicant’s Arguments Regarding Claim Rejections Under 35 USC §101
These rejections are withdrawn in view of the Amendment.
Response to Applicant’s Arguments Regarding Claim Rejections Under 35 USC §102/103
On page 8 of the Amendment, Applicant takes the position that Aliper does not disclose the biomarker values (presumably the biological variables per the claim language) to be derived from blood, urine, saliva. The Examiner disagrees because [065], [0283] of Aliper disclose obtaining blood/urine/saliva samples and [066] discloses obtaining/isolating microbial nucleic acids and determining amounts/percentages of microorganisms to determine a taxonomic profile (collectively, values of biological variables derived from the sample(s))).
Applicant then asserts that Aliper does not disclose use of an XGB model for predicting a physiological age of a subject from biological variables. The Examiner disagrees because
the Abstract, [012], [056] of Aliper disclose processing a taxonomic profile of a user (including microbiota values which are "biological variables" as noted above) using a computer configured with an ML platform (trained per [061], [068], [094]) to predict a phenotypic/biological age of the subject (physiological age per [0002]) while [0140] of Aliper discloses predicting the age with an XGB model).
Finally and in relation to Applicant's position that Aliper does not disclose the recited custom loss function of the model being a function of chronological age, the Examiner disagrees because [0120]-[0123], [0228] of Aliper discuss performing five-fold cross-validation on the ML/XGB model using mean absolute value (MAE) to measure each evaluation, where MAE is the difference between the predicted and observed/chronological age (custom loss function being a function of chronological age)).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 7 recites how the reference value of a biological variable for a given chronological age is determined as a mean value of the biological variable among a plurality of individuals of the given chronological age for which the biological variable does not contribute to a difference between the predicted age and the chronological age. However, claim 6, from which claim 7 depends, recites comparing at least one value of a biological variable most contributing to the difference, to a reference value of said biological variable for the same chronological age. Therefore, it is not understood how the biological variable can both "most contribute" to the difference while at the same time "not contribute to the difference."
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 2, 11, and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and (a)(2) as being anticipated by Int'l Pub. No. WO 2020/084536 to Aliper et al. ("Aliper"):
Regarding claim 1, Aliper discloses a computer-implemented method (the Abstract, [012], [056] disclose processing a taxonomic profile of a user (including microbiota values which are "biological variables") using a computer configured with an ML platform), comprising:
receiving values of a set biological variables derived from at least one of a blood sample, a urine sample and a saliva sample of a subject ([065], [0283] disclose obtaining blood/urine/saliva samples and [066] discloses obtaining/isolating microbial nucleic acids and determining amounts/percentages of microorganisms to determine a taxonomic profile (collectively, values of biological variables derived from the sample(s)));
applying on the received values a trained model configured to output a predicted physiological age of the subject (the Abstract, [012], [056] disclose processing a taxonomic profile of a user (including microbiota values which are "biological variables" as noted above) using a computer configured with an ML platform (trained per [061], [068], [094]) to predict a phenotypic/biological age of the subject (physiological age per [0002])),
wherein the trained model is an XGboost model ([0140] discloses predicting age with an XGB model) with a custom loss function being a function of chronological age ([0120]-[0123], [0228] discuss performing five-fold cross-validation on the ML/XGB model using mean absolute value (MAE) to measure each evaluation, where MAE is the difference between the predicted and observed/chronological age (custom loss function being a function of chronological age)).
Regarding claim 2, Aliper discloses the computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further including comparing the physiological age of the subject with the chronological age of the subject, wherein a positive difference between the physiological age of the subject and the chronological age is indicative of premature ageing of the subject ([088] discloses comparing the predicted phenotypical age (the physiological age) with the subject's actual age (the chronological age) and determining that the phenotypical/physiological age is older than the real/chronological age which would be indicative of "premature ageing").
Regarding claim 11, Aliper discloses a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium (memory 606 in Figure 6) having stored thereon code instructions for which, when executed by a processor, cause said processor to implementing a method ([0285]-[0286] discloses how the memory includes instructions executable by a processor to perform the methods) according to claim 1 (see above discussion in claim 1).
Regarding 12, Aliper discloses a computing system (computing system in Figure 6) comprising:
a processor (processor 604),
a non-transitory computer-readable medium (memory 606) storing program code that is executable by the processor ([0285]-[0286] discloses how the memory includes instructions executable by a processor to perform the methods),
wherein the processor is configured for executing the program code to perform operations (processors necessarily execute instructions/program code to perform operations).
The remaining limitations of claim 12 are disclosed Aliper as discussed above in relation to claim 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 3, 4, 6, and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Int'l Pub. No. WO 2020/084536 to Aliper et al. ("Aliper") in view of U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2022/0304942 to Shephard et al. ("Shephard"):
Regarding claim 3, Aliper discloses the computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further including comparing the taxonomic profile of the user to those of reference users ([016] of Aliper), using the ML model to generate predicted ages of the reference users ([018]), and determining the most significant features in the context of aging ([062] of Aliper).
However, the Aliper/Blander combination appears to be silent regarding comparing the physiological age of the subject with a reference age corresponding to a mean age predicted by the trained model on a reference population, and when the physiological age of the subject differs from the reference age, identifying the biological variables most contributing to the difference.
Nevertheless, Shephard teaches ([0056]-[0060]) that it was known in the healthcare informatics art to compare a metabolic (physiological) age of patient with an average biomarker status (which corresponds to a metabolic/physiological age) of patients having a same chronological age. For instance, these paragraphs discuss how a patient's biomarker status (which corresponds to metabolic/physiological age) sometimes corresponds to an average status of patient's having a higher or lower chronological age such that the patient has a higher or lower metabolic/physiological age than actual chronological age. This analysis advantageously determines a relation between the patient's biological age and that of a reference population thereby facilitating determination of appropriate interventions to improve the patient's metabolic/physiological age (e.g., so that it is closer to or less than the patient's actual chronological age).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention for the processor of Aliper to compare the physiological age of the subject with a reference age corresponding to a mean/average age predicted by the trained model on a reference population of Aliper as taught by Shephard to advantageously determine a relation between the patient's biological age and that of the reference population thereby facilitating determination of appropriate interventions (e.g., so that it is closer to or less than the patient's actual chronological age). Further, as Aliper already discloses ([062], [0131], [144]) determining the most significant features in the context of aging, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have determined such significant features when the physiological age of the subject differs from the average reference age as taught by Shephard to allow for appropriate interventions to be undertaken regarding such significant features to improve the user's predicted age (e.g., in the case where it is greater than the average reference age). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the prior art to achieve the claimed invention and there would have been a reasonable expectation of success in doing so. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). Furthermore, all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art. Id.
Regarding claim 4, the Aliper/Shephard combination discloses the computer-implemented method according to claim 3, further including wherein the reference population is a population of individuals having the same chronological age as the individual ([0056] of Shephard discloses how the "reference population" has the same chronological age as the patient; again, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention for the processor of Aliper to compare the physiological age of the subject with a reference age corresponding to a mean/average age predicted by the trained model on a reference population of Aliper as taught by Shephard to advantageously determine a relation between the patient's biological age and that of the reference population thereby facilitating determination of appropriate interventions (e.g., so that it is closer to or less than the patient's actual chronological age). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the prior art to achieve the claimed invention and there would have been a reasonable expectation of success in doing so. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). Furthermore, all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art. Id.).
Regarding claim 6, the Aliper/Shephard combination discloses the computer-implemented method according to claim 3, further including comparing at least one value of a biological variable most contributing to the difference, to a reference value of said biological variable for the same chronological age ([0056] of Shephard discloses how subjects of a single specific chronological age have an average status of biomarker A and how some of the patients in the single specific chronological age have a status of biomarker A that instead corresponds to subjects of a lower or high chronological age thus implying that such patients have a higher or lower metabolic/physiological age than chronological age; this determination necessarily requires a comparison of the patient's status of biomarker A to the average status of the single specific chronological age in order to determine that it does not correspond and then a comparison of the patient's status of biomarker A to the average status of other chronological ages to determine that the patient's metabolic/physiological is higher or lower than their chronological age; therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention for the processor of Aliper to compare at least one value of a biological variable (e.g., the biomarker being a biological variable most contributing to the age prediction per [062], [0131], [144] of Aliper which necessarily thus most contributes to the difference) to a reference value of said biological variable for the same chronological age similar to as taught by Shephard to advantageously facilitate understanding of factors leading to the age difference and thereby facilitate determination of appropriate interventions. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the prior art to achieve the claimed invention and there would have been a reasonable expectation of success in doing so. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). Furthermore, all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art. Id.).
Regarding claim 8, the Aliper/Shephard combination discloses the computer-implemented method according to claim 3, further including determining an ageing profile of the subject among a plurality of pre-established ageing profiles, based on the identified biological or physiological values most contributing to the difference (the Abstract, [012], [056] disclose processing a taxonomic profile of a user including microbiota values which are "biological variables" where the biological variables/biomarkers include biological variables most contributing to the age prediction per [0062], [0131], [144] of Aliper which necessarily thus most contributes to the difference per the combination with Shepard as discussed above in relation to claim 3; furthermore, [018], [067], [083], [092] discloses comparing the subject's taxonomic profile to a plurality of reference profiles associated with respective phenotypic/physiologic ages to determine a comparable profile to facilitate determination of the subject's age; therefore, the identified comparable profile (again which includes the most significant features per [062], [0131], [144] of Aliper which necessarily contribute to the difference per the combination with Shepard as discussed above in relation to claim 3) is the determined "ageing profile" among a plurality of "pre-established ageing profiles" (the reference profiles)).
Claims 5 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Int'l Pub. No. WO 2020/084536 to Aliper et al. ("Aliper") in view of U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2022/0304942 to Shephard et al. ("Shephard"), and further in view of U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2024/0006051 to Dogra ("Dogra"):
Regarding claim 5, the Aliper/Shephard combination discloses the computer-implemented method according to claim 3, but appears to be silent regarding wherein identifying the biological variables most contributing to the difference comprises determining Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP) values associated to each of the biological variables and identifying the SHAP values having highest absolute value.
Nevertheless, Dogra teaches ([0008], [0264], [0288]-[0300] and Figures 6A-8B) that it was known in the healthcare informatics and machine learning art to calculate Shapley values of features used by an ML model to predict microbiota status values of a user and identify features having the greatest Shapley values (those with largest absolute values as shown in Figures 6A-8B) as most contributing to the predicted status values generated by the ML model to advantageously facilitate determination of appropriate actions/interventions to take regarding the features to improve the microbiota status.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention for the identifying of the biological variables contributing most to the difference in the Aliper/Shephard combination to include determining SHAP values associated to each of the biological variables and identifying the SHAP values having highest absolute value similar to as taught by Dogra because determining feature importance in this manner advantageously allows intuitive explanatory graphical plots to be presented (e.g., Figures 6A-8B of Dogra) regarding such important features to advantageously facilitate determination of appropriate actions/interventions regarding the variables/features to take to improve/lower the user's predicted biological age and because Shapley analysis is a well-known manner of determining feature importance in machine learning. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the prior art to achieve the claimed invention and there would have been a reasonable expectation of success in doing so. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). Furthermore, all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art. Id.
Regarding claim 9, the Aliper/Shephard combination discloses the computer-implemented method according to claim 8, further including wherein the plurality of pre-established ageing profiles are determined by:
predicting the chronological age of a plurality of individuals of a population by implementing the trained model, wherein the population comprises for each of a plurality of chronological ages, a plurality of individuals ([018] of Aliper discloses using the ML model to generate predicted ages of the reference users),
determining at least a mean predicted age of the population ([092] of Aliper discloses determining the average age of the reference subjects),
determining, for a plurality of individuals of the population, the … biological variables most contributing to a difference between the predicted age for the individual and the mean predicted age ([062], [0131] of Aliper discloses determining the most significant features which would necessarily most contribute to the difference between the predicted and mean age per the combination with Shepard as discussed above in relation to claim 3; for instance, as the most significant features per [062], [0131], [144] of Aliper are those that have the greatest effect on the age prediction, then such features would also have the greatest effect (contribute the most) to the difference between the age prediction and the mean predicted age per the combination with Shephard),
performing clustering … to obtain a finite number of clusters, wherein each cluster corresponds to an ageing profile ([083], [090] of Aliper discloses how each of the plurality of reference profiles can be combined from a plurality of subjects such that each respective plurality of reference profiles is a "cluster"; furthermore, the average age of the profiles ([092]) of each "cluster" corresponds to an "ageing profile").
However, the Aliper/Shephard combination appears to be silent regarding the determining including the SHAP values of the biological variables most contributing to a difference between the predicted age for the individual and the mean predicted age, where the clustering is performed on the SHAP values.
Nevertheless, Dogra teaches ([0008], [0264], [0288]-[0300] and Figures 6A-8B) that it was known in the healthcare informatics and machine learning art to calculate Shapley values of features used by an ML model to predict microbiota status values of a user and identify features having the greatest Shapley values as most contributing to the predicted status values generated by the ML model to advantageously facilitate determination of appropriate actions/interventions to take regarding the features to improve the microbiota status.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have determined the largest SHAP values of the biological variables in the subject/individuals of the reference population such that the clustering is performed based on the SHAP values in the system of the Aliper/Shephard combination as taught by Dogra to advantageously facilitate determination of appropriate actions/interventions regarding the variables/features to take to improve/lower the user's predicted biological age and because Shapley analysis is a well-known manner of determining feature importance in machine learning. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the prior art to achieve the claimed invention and there would have been a reasonable expectation of success in doing so. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). Furthermore, all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art. Id.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Int'l Pub. No. WO 2020/084536 to Aliper et al. ("Aliper") in view of U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2017/0286625 to Blander et al. ("Blander")
Regarding claim 13, Aliper discloses the computing system according to claim 12, further including wherein the processor is communicatively coupled via a data network to a client system (Figure 6 discloses other computing device 602 ("client system") which is communicatively coupled to the processor 064 via communication devices 646 ("data network"); also, [207] discloses how a report including the predicted age can be provided to a computer/client system (e.g., smartphone) of the subject which would be via some data network), and is configured … to return to the client system the physiological age of the subject ([207] discloses how a report including the predicted age can be provided to a computer/client device (e.g., smartphone) of the subject), or a difference between the physiological age of the subject and a reference age corresponding to a mean age predicted by the trained model on a population.
However, Aliper might be silent regarding the processor being configured to receive the set of values of biological variables relative to the subject from the client system.
Nevertheless, Blander teaches (Figures 1 and 4A and [0027]-[0030], [0062], [0076]) that it was known in the healthcare informatics art to receive biomarkers from a user device 105, determine a physiological age 135 of the user based on the received biomarkers, and display the determined physiological age on a user interface of the device. This arrangement advantageously allows a user to provide their own biomarkers and related patient data thus facilitating determination of the physiological age.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention for the processor of Aliper to be configured to receive the set of values of biological variables relative to the subject from the client system as taught by Blander to advantageously allow a user to provide their own biomarkers and related patient data thus facilitating determination of the physiological age. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the prior art to achieve the claimed invention and there would have been a reasonable expectation of success in doing so. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). Furthermore, all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art. Id.
Claims 14 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Int'l Pub. No. WO 2020/084536 to Aliper et al. ("Aliper") in view of U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2017/0286625 to Blander et al. ("Blander"), and further in view of UA Patent No. 129537 to Андріївна ("Андріївна") and U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2024/0006051 to Dogra ("Dogra"):
Regarding claim 14, the Aliper/Blander combination discloses the computing system according to claim 13, and further discloses comparing the taxonomic profile of the user to those of reference users ([016] of Aliper), using the ML model to generate predicted ages of the reference users ([018]), and determining the most significant features in the context of aging ([062] of Aliper).
However, the Aliper/Blander combination appears to be silent regarding when the computed difference is different from zero, the processor is further configured to compute Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP) values associated to each of the biological variables and identifying the SHAP values having highest absolute value, said SHAP values corresponding to biological variables most contributing to the computed difference.
Nevertheless, Андріївна teaches (end of page 5 of attached translation) that it was known in the healthcare informatics art to determine a relationship between a biological age of a patient and a reference average biological age of a population that are determined using various patient parameters and determine if the biological age of the patient is greater or less than the reference biological age (a difference different than zero) to advantageously determine a relation between the patient's biological age and that of the reference population thereby facilitating determination of appropriate interventions.
Furthermore, Dogra teaches ([0008], [0264], [0288]-[0300] and Figures 6A-8B) that it was known in the healthcare informatics and machine learning art to calculate Shapley values of features used by an ML model to predict microbiota status values of a user and identify features having the greatest Shapley values (those with largest absolute values as shown in Figures 6A-8B) as most contributing to the predicted status values generated by the ML model to advantageously facilitate determination of appropriate actions/interventions to take regarding the features to improve the microbiota status.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention for the processor of the Aliper/Blander combination to determine a difference between the patient's biological age and an average age of a reference population as taught by Андріївна to advantageously determine a relation between the patient's biological age and that of the reference population thereby facilitating determination of appropriate interventions. Furthermore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention for the processor of the Aliper/Blander combination to compute SHAP values associated to each of the biological variables and identify the SHAP values having highest absolute value as corresponding to biological variables most contributing to the biological/physiological age prediction in the Aliper/Blander combination similar to as taught by Dogra (where such important variables/features thus most contribute to the difference between the patient's biological age and an average age of a reference population as taught by Андріївна) to advantageously facilitate determination of appropriate actions/interventions regarding the variables/features to take to improve/lower the user's predicted biological age. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the prior art to achieve the claimed invention and there would have been a reasonable expectation of success in doing so. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). Furthermore, all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art. Id.
Regarding claim 15, the Aliper/Blander/Андріївна/Dogra combination discloses the computing system according to claim 14, further including wherein the processor is further configured to generate graphical data representing the SHAP values having highest absolute value, wherein the SHAP values contributing to increasing the age predicted by the model with respect to the reference age are represented in a first color and the SHAP values contributing to decreasing the age predicted by the model with respect to the reference age are represented in a second color ([0288]-[0300] and Figures 6A-8B of Dogra discloses displaying graphical data representing the SHAP values having highest absolute value, where the SHAP values having a positive impact on the output predicted by the model are represented in a first color and the SHAP values having a negative impact on the output predicted by the model are represented in a second color; this arrangement advantageously conveys in an easy to understand format those features having the greatest positive and negative impact of predictions from the ML; therefore, it would have been obvious for the processor of the Aliper/Blander/Андріївна/Dogra combination to generate graphical data representing the SHAP values having highest absolute value such that SHAP values contributing to increasing the age predicted by the model (which would thus also be with respect to the reference age) are represented in a first color and the SHAP values contributing to decreasing the age predicted by the model (which would thus also be with respect to the reference age) are represented in a second color as taught by Dogra to advantageously convey in an easy to understand format those features having the greatest positive and negative impact of predictions from the ML thus allowing for appropriate interventions to be made; a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the prior art to achieve the claimed invention and there would have been a reasonable expectation of success in doing so. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). Furthermore, all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art. Id.).
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.
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/JONATHON A. SZUMNY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3686