DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Correction
Applicant’s representative, David Tenner, called on 10/20/2025 to point out that the elected group of invention includes claim 8 but is missing in the non-final rejection (mailed on 10/02/2025). Examiner verified that claim 8 was inadvertently not included in said rejection and agreed to rectify this oversight.
This document serves as the corrected non-final rejection and supersedes the last office action.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant elected Invention I, without traverse, in the reply filed on 8/30/2025. Accordingly, claims 1-8 have been examined on the merits.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 3/10/2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 C.F.R. 1.97. All references cited in said IDS have been fully considered.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because (i) Figure 7 shows the scientific names of cyanobacteria but are not italicized; and (ii) does not satisfy the standard for drawings according to 37 C.F.R. 1.84 section (l), which states “All drawings must be made by a process which will give them satisfactory reproduction characteristics. Every line, number, and letter must be durable, clean, black (except for color drawings), sufficiently dense and dark, and uniformly thick and well-defined”. See MPEP § 608.02(V).
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
In addition to Replacement Sheets containing the corrected drawing figure(s), applicant is required to submit a marked-up copy of each Replacement Sheet including annotations indicating the changes made to the previous version. The marked-up copy must be clearly labeled as “Annotated Sheets” and must be presented in the amendment or remarks section that explains the change(s) to the drawings. See 37 CFR 1.121(d)(1). Failure to timely submit the proposed drawing and marked-up copy will result in the abandonment of the application.
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 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1)/102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Maekawa (Pub. No. US 2001/0024828 A1).
Maekawa discloses an incubation carrier for microorganism incubation of a diffusion type, in which microelements and inorganic nutrient salts are included in a porous material (Abstract; Figure 1). The carrier can contain organic carbon sources like glucose and biodegradable resin. In addition, the surface of the carrier can be coated with a high molecular polymer or biodegradable resin to control diffusion (par. [0008], [0038]).
Maekawa reads on the instant application’s composition as follows:
Regarding claim 1: the carrier being made of a porous material including porous ceramics, natural stone materials like pumice stone, and rock wool (par. [0007]-[0010], [0033]) is equivalent to “a porous body comprising a plurality of pores”
The organic carbon source like glucose being contained in the carrier (par. [0036]-[0037]), specifically in the pores (Figure 2), is analogous to “a growth promoting agent loaded into the pores of the porous body”.
An example of the organic carbon source is glucose, which satisfies “wherein the growth promoting agent is effective to promote growth of microorganisms that compete with cyanobacteria for resources so as to be effective to suppress growth of the cyanobacteria.”
Regarding claim 2: Maekawa does not explicitly teach that the carrier is “buoyant in water”. But given that the carrier is made of porous material such as pumice stone which is naturally buoyant, the prior art is considered to meet the limitation of the instant claim.
Regarding claim 3: the surface of the carrier being coated with a high molecular polymer or biodegradable resin that controls the diffusion of microelements and inorganic nutrient salts in the porous material (par. [0008], [0036], [0038]) fulfills “further comprising a biodegradable coating at least partially surrounding an exterior surface of the porous body, wherein the biodegradable coating is effective to delay a release of the growth promoting agent from the porous body upon exposure to water”.
Regarding claim 4: pumice stone as the natural stone material that makes up the carrier meets the limitation “wherein the porous body comprises a natural material selected from the group consisting of a pumice stone, wood chips and a sponge”.
Regarding claim 5: the organic carbon source serves as a nutrient for microorganisms and therefore satisfies “wherein the growth promoting agent is non-toxic”. It also does not fully occupy the pores, which can contain microorganisms and thus fulfills “occupies less than 100% of a total volume of the pores of the porous body”.
Regarding claim 6: the glucose is a carbohydrate, which is identical to “wherein the growth promoting agent is a carbohydrate”.
Regarding claim 7: glucose as the organic carbon source corresponds to “wherein the growth promoting agent is a carbohydrate selected from the group consisting of glucose, fructose and sucrose”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maekawa (Pub. No. US 2001/0024828 A1) in view of Levy (Pub. No. US RE37,890 E) and Li (Pub. No. CN 104003784 A; English translation).
The teachings of Maekawa are set forth above and applied herein. Maekawa is found to anticipate claims 1-7.
Maekawa is comparable to the claim below:
Regarding claim 8: the biodegradable coating in the method of claim 3 is further limited to “a plant-based wax or a beeswax”.
Maekawa differs from the instant claim in that it does not specify the coating on the carrier surface.
Nonetheless, controlled delivery of active ingredients using wax is conventional in the art. Levy, for example, teaches that coatings like wax are used regulate the controlled release rate and release profile of bioactive agents such as nutrients over a period of time in an aqueous medium. Not only are they biodegradable or erodible, coatings also protect the bioactive agents from photodegradation or biodegradation (lines 12-20 and 26-35, col. 10; line 13, col. 11). By applying a coating on a composition comprising a carrier and a bioactive agent for treating aquatic organisms, the bioactive agent to the aquatic organisms is ensured (lines 36-48, col. 3). Although Levy does not specify the wax, Li shows that beeswax and palm wax are suitable as slow-release coating for compositions. Li teaches that a coating comprising said waxes allows the active ingredient to be slowly released without causing pollution to the environment (Abstract; par. [0008]). Given that Maekawa teaches coating the porous carrier with a material that controls the diffusion of microelements and inorganic nutrient salts, it would have been obvious to apply a wax like beeswax and palm wax on the disclosed incubation carrier. There would have been reasonable expectation of success because plant-based wax and beeswax are known to be biodegradable and facilitates controlled release of active ingredients or bioactive agents as taught by Levy and Li (par. [0020]). Obviousness is based on that rationale that combining prior art elements according to known methods yields predictable results. See MPEP § 2143 and KSR, 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d at 1395.
Claim 8 is thus obvious over Maekawa in view of Levy and Li.
Conclusion
No claim is allowed.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHELLE F PAGUIO FRISING whose telephone number is (571)272-6224. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m..
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/Michelle F. Paguio Frising/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1651