SYSTEM, METHOD, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR DETERMINING FEATURE IMPORTANCE

The European Patent Office published patent EP4643282A1 titled 'System, Method, and Computer Program Product for Determining Feature Importance.' The patent covers techniques for evaluating and ranking the importance of input features in machine learning models, enabling identification of which features contribute most significantly to model predictions. The invention includes classification under G06N 20/20 (machine learning), G06N 5/01 (knowledge-based systems), and G06F 16/28 (data structures). The patent designates all EU member states and extended states including AL, AT, BE, BG, CH, CY, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HR, HU, IE, IS, IT, LI, LT, LU, LV, MC, ME, MK, MT, NL, NO, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SI, SK, SM, and TR.

Affected parties including payment processors, financial technology companies, machine learning service providers, and competitors in the payments ecosystem should monitor this patent grant. The patent grants Visa enforceable exclusive rights to this ML feature importance technique across designated EU territories, which may impact research and development activities involving similar methodologies without licensing arrangements. Technology companies implementing comparable feature importance determination approaches in the EU may need to evaluate potential infringement exposure.