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 .
Response to Amendment
Amendments to claims filed on 2/2/2026 are hereby acknowledged.
Claims 7 and 8 are canceled. Therefore, claims 1-6 and 9-16 are currently pending.
Response to Remarks/Indication of Allowable Subject Matter
Independent claims 1 and 13 are amended to incorporate indicated allowable subject matter in the previous Office Action dated 11/20/2025. The indication of allowable subject matter is regrettably withdrawn in view of the Examiner’s reconsideration of the presently pending claims and in view of the newly discovered reference KR101916388 (submitted by Applicants in the IDS filed 4/20/2023).
Below are new grounds of rejections.
Claim Objections
Claim 9 is objected to because of the following informalities: in line 2 of the claim, the recitation “the indication of weight to set” should be corrected to – the indication of the weight of the filter cake to set --. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 16 is objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate of claim 9. When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 608.01(m).
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.
Claims 6, 10-12, and 15 are 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.
Claims 6, 10, and 14 recite “a pressing amount of the pressure filter” which is indefinite because it is not known what the “pressing amount” is in reference to, i.e., amount of pressure to be applied, length of time, number of times, amount of a feed to be pressed, etc.
Claims 11 and 12 contain both a method limitation and apparatus limitation: claim 11 recites “wherein the solid-liquid separation comprises” and “the arrangement comprises one of more sensors”; and claim 12 recites “one or more sensors’ and “a filtrate produced by the pressure filter for setting the drying time and/or a control value for washing the filter cake”. Claims cannot be directed to both a method and an apparatus; it must be clear by their wording that they are drawn to one or the other of these two mutually exclusive statutory classes of inventions.
Claim 15 recites “A controller configured to cause the method of claim 13 ..” No subcomponents of the controller are claimed and, therefore, it is not clear what encompasses a controller.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1, 3-6, 9, 10, and 13-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent 9010544 to Miller (hereinafter “Miller”) in view of KR 101916388 (hereinafter “KR ‘388”; relying upon an English translation provided by the Applicants in the IDS filed 4/20/2023).
With respect to claims 1, 6, 9, 10, 13- 5, and 16, Miller discloses a dewatering and composting filter apparatus and a process for separating solids from a liquid such as agricultural residues and municipal waste water (see Abstract and col. 26, lines 52-54). Miller discloses (Figure 7A and its corresponding description in col. 26, line 50 to col. 30, line 38):
a filter 360 utilized as a composting vessel for manure upon completion of the dewater phase (equivalent to claimed pressure filter for solid-liquid separation for producing a filter cake) (see specifically, col. 26, lines 30-53);
means for producing compost from the sludge include at least one ventilating fan 362, at least one probe 364 for measuring the temperature of the sludge, and include at least one probe 366 for measuring the moisture content of the sludge (equivalent to claimed moisture analyzer for providing an indication of moisture content of the filter cake) (see specifically col. 26, lines 60-64); and
the fan 362 and the moisture sensor are in communication with and operated by a programmable logic controller (PLC) 290 (equivalent to claimed one or more controllers for utilizing the indication moisture content to set a drying time for the solid-liquid separation). Specifically, fan 362 is driven by motor 372, the speed of which may be controlled by variable speed drive (VSD) 374, which is in communication with and operated by PLC 290. The fan 362 is operated for a period of time at a first speed to partially dry the dewatered sludge to a desired predetermined value that results in effective composting. The moisture content of the sludge is measured by the moisture sensor 266 in communication with PLC 290. Once the desired level of dryness of the sludge is achieved, the fan is shut down. See specifically col. 29, lines 41-56 and col. 30, lines 7-38.
Miller fails to disclose the claimed one or more weight sensor and/or load cells for providing an indication of the weight of the filter cake.
KR ‘388 is directed to a filtration device capable of monitoring the moisture content of a cake in which a filtrate is dehydrated in real time (see [0001] & [0004]). KR ‘388 discloses (referencing Fig. 1):
a filter press 1 (equivalent to claimed pressure filter) which dehydrates a sludge to form a cake;
a sludge measurement sensor 300 which measures volume, density, concentration, temperature, mass of the injected sludge (equivalent to claimed weight sensor) (see [0041]-[0043]);
a filtrate measurement sensor 500 (equivalent to claimed weight sensor) (see [0047] & [0048]);
a calculation unit 600 which calculates the moisture content of the cake (equivalent to claimed moisture analyzer) (see [0051]); and
a control unit 700 receives the moisture content of the cake measured by the operation unit 600 (equivalent to claimed controllers) (see [0059]).
KR ‘388 discloses the control unit 700 receives information from a moisture analyzer 600, mass of the cake from weight sensors 300 and 500 (see specifically [0042], [0051], and [0057]). Based on the received data, control unit 700 may stop the dehydration process or input of the sludge (see [0060] and [0063]).
It would have obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the filter apparatus of Miller by incorporating the sludge weight sensor 300 and filtrate weight sensor 500 disclosed by KR ‘388 because KR ‘388 discloses a mass of the cake filter (sludge weight -filtrate weight) is in the equation to measure the moisture content of the cake [see [0056] & [0057]). The controller relies on the moisture measurement of the cake for efficient running of the filter device and filtration process (see [0006] & [0008]).
With respect to claim 3, Miller discloses use of two bladders which are connected and operated simultaneously by pressurized air supplied through a valve under the control of PLC (see col. 26, lines 42-49).
With respect to claim 4, Miller’s PLC is a considered a multivariable controller since the PLC operates the fan, moisture sensor, and a temperature sensor. See col. 26, lines 46-49 and col. 30, lines 6-28.
With respect to claim 5, while Miller and KR ‘388 each discloses a multivariable controller, neither discloses specifically claimed model predictive controller (MPC). However, it is known to those in the art that MPC is used to predict future behavior which would allow for optimization of control actions to achieve desired outcomes.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miller in view of KR ‘388 as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 20150177037 to Wagner et al. (hereinafter “Wagner”).
Miller does not disclose the moisture analyzer is a microwave analyzer, a capacitive sensor, or a near-infrared sensor.
Wagner discloses a moisture sensor may be a capacitive sensor (see [0013]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the filter system and the method of Miller by employing a capacitive sensor disclosed by Wagner since Miller does not limit utilization of any specific type of a moisture sensor.
Conclusion
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/IN SUK C BULLOCK/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1772
