DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims:
Claims 1-27 are pending.
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 .
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: paragraph 0066 of the specification states “pump 85 drives solids/liquids from line 82 via a line 83…” the reference number “82” appears to be a typographical error and should be “84” (see fig. 3 and para. 0066).
Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-27 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.
Regarding Claim 1:
The claim refers to “the final intermediate cell”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation within the claims.
The claim states “periodically passing the feed to the input cell to produce periodic gravity induced flow of liquid…from the input cell serially through any intermediate cells…” and further requires “operating the input cell and/or one or more intermediate cells as an anaerobic sequencing batch reactor”. It is not clear how the input cell and/or one or more intermediate cells can operate as an AnSBR when passing the feed into the input cell produces flow from the input cell and both into and out of (through) any intermediate cells. An AnSBR requires the feed and discharge (withdrawing of supernatant, “fill-and-draw basis in a sequential manner”) to be separate steps (see Dague USPN 5,185,079, Abstract, Col. 1 lines 36-50: cited in IDS and incorporated by reference into the instant application). The specification does not clarify how the AnSBR operates further stating the “the process liquid flows through the cells of the MCLR by gravity…to eliminates any necessity of pumping…” (see para. 0018 published application), therefore it is not clear how sequential feed and withdrawing stages are achieved.
The claim states “to increase the passing of supernatant and decrease the passing of solids to a downstream cell”. This limitation renders the claim indefinite because it is not clear what the increase and decrease are in comparison to.
Regarding Claim 2:
The claim refers to “a partition”. It is not clear if the claim is requiring an additional partition or further limiting the partition required by line 6 of claim 1.
Regarding Claim 11:
The claim states “the periodic mixing within at least one cell…” However step c. of claim 1 requires the periodic mixing in the AnSBR. It is therefore not clear claim 11 is limiting the type of periodic mixing any cell or within any AnSBR cell.
Regarding Claim 13:
The claim states “the input cell operates as an AnSBR” and “at least one intermediate cell operates as a UAC”. It is not clear these are in addition to the AnSBR and UAC required by claims 1 and 4 or limiting the locations of the AnSBR and UAC of claims 1 and 4.
Regarding Claim 15:
The claim refers to “an intermediate cell”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation within the claims. There is only support for “at least one intermediate cell”.
Regarding Claim 17:
The claim refers to “the last intermediate cell”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation within the claims.
Regarding Claim 18:
The claim states “periodically passing the feed to the input cell to produce periodic gravity induced flow of liquid…from the input cell, serially through the intermediate cell(s)…” and further requires “operating at least the input cell as an anaerobic sequencing batch reactor”. It is not clear how the input cell can operate as an AnSBR when passing the feed into the input cell produces flow from the input cell. An AnSBR requires the feed and discharge (withdrawing of supernatant, “fill-and-draw basis in a sequential manner”) to be separate steps (see Dague USPN 5,185,079, Abstract, Col. 1 lines 36-50: cited in IDS and incorporated by reference into the instant application). The specification does not clarify how the AnSBR operates further stating the “the process liquid flows through the cells of the MCLR by gravity…to eliminates any necessity of pumping…” (see para. 0018 published application), therefore it is not clear how sequential feed and withdrawing stages are achieved.
The claim states “to increase the passing of supernatant and decrease the passing of solids to a downstream cell”. This limitation renders the claim indefinite because it is not clear what the increase and decrease are in comparison to.
Step e. ends in a period, however additional limitations are included in claim 18 after step e..
Step g. refers to “an intermediate cell”. However there is already antecedent basis for at least two intermediate cells.
Regarding Claim 21:
The claim refers to “a UAC” however there is already antecedent basis provided for a UAC cell in claim 18.
Regarding Claim 23:
Steps a., b., and c. use the phrase “at least periodically”. It is not clear how the phrase “at least” modifies the term “periodically”. Specifically it is not clear if “at least periodically” includes continuously because continuous is greater than periodic or it the phrase is intended to mean periodically.
The claim states “operating at least the input cell as an anaerobic sequencing batch reactor” This limitation renders the claim indefinite because it is not clear what the application means by “anaerobic sequencing batch reactor”. An anaerobic sequencing batch reactor requires separate feed and withdraw steps (see Dague USPN 5,185,079, Abstract, Col. 1 lines 36-50: cited in IDS and incorporated by reference into the instant application). It is therefore not clear if the applicant is intending a different interpretation of “anaerobic sequencing batch reactor” or not.
Step j. states “recovering the biogas produced in the and the large lagoon”. It is not clear if there the biogas is required to be recovered from an additional location or only the large lagoon.
Regarding Claim 25:
The claim states “a greater amount of feed periodically passed to one of the large lagoon or the MCLR”. It is not clear what if “greater” is referring to the comparison between the amount of feed passed to the large lagoon and MCLR, or the amount of feed passed to the large lagoon or MCLR during steps a. and b. of claim 23.
The remaining claims are indefinite as they depend from indefinite claims.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-27 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The claims would be allowable in view of the closest prior art, Dague (USPN 5,185,079, cited in IDS), Hamilton (US 2019/0337829), and Reid (USPN 9,005,442). The prior art teaches a process of anaerobically treating a feed of swine manure in a multicell lagoon reactor, wherein the reaction system has an input cell (first wastewater treatment zone), an output cell (final wastewater treatment zone) and at least one intermediate cell(second wastewater treatment zone) (see Reid fig. 4, col. 3 lines 59-63); each cell retains a volume of liquid and suspended solids; a partition (partitioning elements 120 and 120’) restricts the flow of liquid and suspended solids between cells (see Reid col. 6 lines 41-45); and one or more enclosures cover (cover 430) the cells to collect biogas from the cells (see Reid fig. 4, col. 6 lines 45-46), the process further comprising; periodically passing the feed to the input cell to produce a periodic gravity induced flow of liquid comprising a supernatant and entrained solids from the input cell serially through any intermediate cells and from the final intermediate cell into the output cell while minimizing mixing in the cells to increase the passing of supernatant and decrease the passing of solids to a downstream cell (see Reid col. 5 lines 16-21).
The prior art further teaches treating manure with an anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (see Hamilton para. 0004, 0006), an STR that exceeds the HTR (see Hamilton para. 0006); periodically mixing the liquid and the solids in the AnSBR (see Hamilton para. 0006); recovering treated solids from below a midpoint (sludge removal conduit 130) and recovering a treated liquid from above a midpoint (decant withdrawal conduit 120) (see Hamilton para. 0028, fig. 1).
The prior art does not teach at least a multicell lagoon reactor wherein at least one of the input cell or intermediate cells are operated as an anerobic sequencing batch reactor (as required by all independent claims). Although the individual features of the claims are known in the prior art. It would not have been obvious to replace at least one of the input or intermediate cells of Reid with an AnSBR as disclosed by Hamilton, because Hamilton teaches that the benefit of the AnSBR is that it can operate with a smaller footprint than a covered lagoon digester (see Hamilton para. 0007). Therefore one skilled in the art would not have been motivated to add additional treatment steps and cells thereby increasing the required footprint of the device. Further Reid does not provide any motivation to operate any cells with periodic mixing between the periodic additions of feed.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CLAIRE A NORRIS whose telephone number is (571)272-5133. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th 7:30-5 F: 8-12.
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/CLAIRE A NORRIS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1779 3/19/2026
/Bobby Ramdhanie/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1779