Prosecution Insights
Last updated: October 02, 2026
Application No. 18/963,991

APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR REDUCING THE IMPACT OF LABEL NOISE ON THE PREDICTION ACCURACY OF A CONCEPTUAL BOTTLENECK MODEL

Non-Final OA §103
Filed
Nov 29, 2024
Examiner
BODNARK, MATTHEW JAMES
Art Unit
2668
Tech Center
2600 — Communications
Assignee
POSTECH Research and Business Development Foundation
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
85%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
1y 1m
Est. Remaining
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 85% — above average
85%
Career Allowance Rate
33 granted / 39 resolved
+22.6% vs TC avg
Strong +23% interview lift
Without
With
+23.1%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 11m
Avg Prosecution
12 currently pending
Career history
52
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
1.5%
-38.5% vs TC avg
§103
65.4%
+25.4% vs TC avg
§102
30.9%
-9.1% vs TC avg
§112
2.2%
-37.8% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 39 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 . 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. Claims 1, 3-4, 6, 11, 13-14, 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Luong et al. (US20220083840A1, hereinafter referred to as Luong) in view of Forest et al. (Interpretable Prognostics with Concept Bottleneck Models, hereinafter referred to as Forest). Regarding claim 1, Luong a concept bottleneck model training apparatus comprising: a memory in which a training program for identifying concepts that degrade the performance of a concept bottleneck model and training the concept bottleneck model is stored; and a processor configured to execute the training program, wherein the training program: receives a training image set, trains a first concept bottleneck model to infer at least one class using the training image set (met by teacher model is not noised during the generation of the pseudo labels), trains a second concept bottleneck model by applying a predetermined ratio of noise to the training image set (met by student model is noised during its training/learning process), evaluates the first concept bottleneck model and the second concept bottleneck model using a test image set, and selects concepts that degrade the prediction accuracy of the concept bottleneck model for a specific class using weight information for each concept included in the evaluation results (met by using a noisy student to emphasize the role that noise plays in providing robust methods for training models that can achieve more accurate results), and wherein the training image set includes. This is read in (Paragraph [0032]-[0033]). PNG media_image1.png 459 417 media_image1.png Greyscale Luong fails to teach a target label representing a specific class and a concept label corresponding to the target label. However, Forest amends this deficiency. Forest teaches a concept bottleneck model as well as a label representing a specific class (image of an apple) and a concept label corresponding to the target label (concepts such as shape (”round”) and color (”red”)). This is read in (Page 4, Paragraph 2). PNG media_image2.png 207 562 media_image2.png Greyscale Therefore, it would have been prima facia obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Luong to incorporate the teachings of Forest in order to provide the application of Concept Bottleneck Models (CBMs) (Abstract). Regarding claim 3, Forest as read in the rejection of claim 1, incorporated herein, meets wherein the target label includes target information for any one of a plurality of classes (met by image of an apple), and the concept label includes a plurality of concept information corresponding to a specific class (met by concepts such as shape (”round”) and color (”red”)). Regarding claim 4, Luong as read in the rejection of claim 1, incorporated herein meets wherein the training program: inputs the test image set into the first concept bottleneck model, calculates the prediction accuracy of the first concept bottleneck model for each class included in the test image set, and generates a first weight list for each class, and wherein the first weight list includes: the plurality of concepts inferred by the first concept bottleneck model for the test images and the weights assigned to each concept when predicting the test images as a specific class (met by injection of the noise component forces the noised student model to learn attributes of data items in a manner that is harder or more difficult). Further, see (Paragraph [0086]). PNG media_image3.png 158 414 media_image3.png Greyscale Regarding claim 6, Luong teaches wherein the training program generates a noisy image set by applying a predetermined ratio of noise to the concept labels defined in the training image set and trains the second concept bottleneck model using the noisy image set (met by system (100) is configured to add noise to the second machine-learning model during the training of the second machine-learning model (208); further met by modify attributes of data items (e.g., images)). This is read in (Paragraph [0054]). PNG media_image4.png 307 420 media_image4.png Greyscale Regarding claim 11, the claim is substantially identical to claim 1, the analysis of which is incorporated herein. Regarding claim 13, the claim is substantially identical to claim 3, the analysis of which is incorporated herein. Regarding claim 14, the claim is substantially identical to claim 4, the analysis of which is incorporated herein. Regarding claim 16, the claim is substantially identical to claim 6, the analysis of which is incorporated herein. Allowable Subject Matter Claims 2, 5, 7-10, 12, 15, 17-20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. Claim 2 recites wherein the training program trains the concept bottleneck model using the concepts that degrade the prediction accuracy for each class and the Sharpness-Aware Minimization (SAM) optimization algorithm. The prior art of reference fails to meet this feature. Claim 5 recites wherein the training program extracts the top n concepts with the highest weights from the first weight list for each class to generate a first key concept list for each class. The prior art of reference fails to meet this feature. Claim 7 recites wherein the training program: inputs the test image set into the second concept bottleneck model, calculates the concept accuracy and prediction accuracy of the second concept bottleneck model for each class included in the test image set, and generates a second weight list for each class, and wherein the second weight list includes: the plurality of concepts inferred by the second concept bottleneck model for the test images and the weights assigned to each concept when predicting the test images as a specific class. The prior art of reference fails to meet these features. Claim 8 recites wherein the training program extracts the top n concepts with the highest weights from the second weight list for each class to generate a second key concept list for each class. The prior art of reference fails to meet this feature. Claim 9 recites wherein the training program analyzes the impact caused by the concepts corresponding to the noise based on changes in at least one of the prediction accuracy of the second concept bottleneck model, the second weight list, or the second key concept list, relative to the prediction accuracy, the first weight list, and the first key concept list of the first concept bottleneck model. The prior art of reference fails to meet these features. Claim 10 recites wherein the training program analyzes concept accuracy change information for each concept, weight change information for each concept, and prediction accuracy change information for each class caused by the concepts corresponding to the noise, based on changes in the key concepts between the first key concept list and the second key concept list, and identifies the concepts that degrade the prediction accuracy for each class using at least one of the analyzed information. The prior art of reference fails to meet these features. Claim 12 is substantially identical to claim 2, the analysis of which is incorporated herein. Claim 15 is substantially identical to claim 5, the analysis of which is incorporated herein. Claim 17 is substantially identical to claim 7, the analysis of which is incorporated herein. Claim 18 is substantially identical to claim 8, the analysis of which is incorporated herein. Claim 19 is substantially identical to claim 9, the analysis of which is incorporated herein. Claim 20 is substantially identical to claim 10, the analysis of which is incorporated herein. Contact Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW JAMES BODNARK whose telephone number is (703)756-5378. The examiner can normally be reached 8a-5p. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vu Le can be reached at (571) 272-7332. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /MATTHEW JAMES BODNARK/Examiner, Art Unit 2668 /UTPAL D SHAH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2668
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Nov 29, 2024
Application Filed
Aug 11, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103 (current)

Precedent Cases

Applications granted by this same examiner with similar technology

Patent 12749329
ANOMALY DETECTION IN DOCUMENTS WITH VISUAL CUES
3y 3m to grant Granted Sep 29, 2026
Patent 12743670
EXTRACTING FEATURES FROM SCREEN IMAGES FOR TASK MINING
3y 9m to grant Granted Sep 22, 2026
Patent 12737872
COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTED METHOD FOR MEASURING AN OBJECT
3y 10m to grant Granted Sep 15, 2026
Patent 12737868
DEFECT DETECTION METHOD, DEVICE AND SYSTEM
3y 0m to grant Granted Sep 15, 2026
Patent 12731386
METHOD, SYSTEM AND TERMINAL OF CROWDSOURCING ANNOTATION FOR MEDICAL IMAGE DATA BASED ON IMAGE COMPARISON
3y 2m to grant Granted Sep 08, 2026
Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

Strategy Recommendation AI-generated — please review before filing

Get a prosecution strategy drawn from examiner precedents, rejection analysis, and claim mapping.
Typically takes 5-10 seconds — AI-generated, attorney review required before filing

Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
85%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+23.1%)
2y 11m (~1y 1m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 39 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

Sign in with your work email

Enter your email to receive a magic link. No password needed.

Personal email addresses (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) are not accepted.

Free tier: 3 strategy analyses per month