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 .
StatusClaims(s) 1-2 and 6-10, is/are filed on 5/27/2026 are currently pending. Claim(s) 9-10 is/are withdrawn, 1-2,6 and 8 is/are rejected.
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 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 pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1, 6-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SEIKO (WO 2018181618 A1).
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Regarding claim 1, SEIKO discloses a method for operating a membrane-separation activated sludge treatment device. Comprising an activated sludge tank configured to treat water to be treated with activated sludge, in the form of the membrane separation activated sludge tank (3), to which wastewater is supplied and treated by adsorption and microbial decomposition by the activated sludge ([0019]); a membrane module immersed in the tank, in the form of the immersion-type membrane separation unit (2) that filters the activated sludge ([0019]); a diffuser means disposed below the membrane module, in the form of the diffuser (8) installed below the immersion-type membrane separation unit (2), to which the air pump/air supply device (7) continuously supplies air ([0021]); and a permeated water discharge means configured to discharge permeated water to the outside of the device, in the form of the suction pump (9) that performs filtration and the filtered water (5) that is stored in the filtration tank (4) before being reused or discharged ([0019]–[0020]).
SEIKO further discloses interrupting the filtration operation after filtration is performed, in that membrane filtration and aeration were stopped ([0132]); injecting a chemical solution for cleaning from the permeated-water discharge side of the membrane module while the module remains immersed in the activated sludge tank, in that sodium hypochlorite (or an inorganic acid) is supplied from the washing-chemical addition tank (16) to clean the membrane elements immersed in the tank (3) ([0094]), and in that the membrane was immersed in activated sludge and chemically washed with 0.5% sodium hypochlorite ([0132]); it is inherent that in-tank chemical washing of an immersed module is effected by injecting the chemical into the treated-water (permeate) channel of the module. SEIKO discloses resuming the filtration operation, in that the membrane filtration operation was restarted ([0132]). The reference further teaches the recited preliminary operation and the gating of resumption on a fouling-derived characteristic. With respect to Condition A, SEIKO discloses that the aeration interrupted during chemical cleaning is thereafter resumed, in that aeration was stopped for the washing and, following the cleaning, aeration was performed for two hours before filtration was restarted ([0132]). With respect to Condition B, SEIKO discloses that, with aeration resumed, a preliminary filtration operation is performed at a flux of 40% or less of the flux during the filtration operation, in that membrane filtration was restarted "at 1/10 of the normal membrane filtration flow rate" (i.e., 10%, which is 40% or less) ([0132]). SEIKO further discloses that the filtration operation is resumed only after a characteristic derived from a fouling material in the activated sludge solution satisfies a preset criterion, in that, after the reduced-flux preliminary operation, the activated sludge was again imaged, the alarm display "disappeared," and only then was the influent switched back and the normal filtration flow rate resumed ([0132]). As to the recited characteristics, claim 1 requires only "any one of" the three alternatives, and SEIKO discloses at least two of them: the image information showing a floc region (Formula 2), in that the amount of aqueous-phase suspended matter is derived from the area ratio of floc regions (61) below a certain area surrounded by the aqueous-phase region (62) per unit field of view ([0055, [0059]–[0060], [0129]); and the turbidity of a filter-paper filtrate of the activated sludge solution (Formula 1), in that the turbidity of the filtrate obtained by solid-liquid separation with quantitative filter paper (No. 5C) is measured with a turbidimeter ([0035]).
SEIKO does not expressly disclose the specific numeric bounds of Formulas 1–3, namely that the filter-paper-filtrate turbidity be less than or equal to the pre-cleaning value plus 4 NTU, that the small-floc area ratio be less than or equal to 1.3 times the pre-cleaning value, or that the increase in membrane filtration resistance be less than or equal to 2.5 times the pre-cleaning value. However, SEIKO already teaches gating the resumption of full-flux filtration on the monitored fouling-derived characteristic returning to within its pre-cleaning management range ([0095], [0132]). The particular threshold defining how closely the sludge/filtrate characteristic must return to its pre-cleaning baseline before normal flux is resumed is a result-effective variable: a tighter bound favors fouling prevention at the cost of throughput, whereas a looser bound favors throughput at the risk of a renewed rise in membrane differential pressure. It has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges of a result-effective variable involves only routine skill in the art (see MPEP 2144.05(II)). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have set the resumption criterion of SEIKO to the claimed values through routine experimentation and optimization, in order to reliably restore stable, low-differential-pressure filtration after chemical cleaning while avoiding unnecessary throughput loss.
Regarding claim 6, SEIKO discloses that the separation membrane used in the immersion-type membrane separation unit (2) is a microfiltration membrane having a pore size of approximately 0.01 μm to 10 μm ([0026]). This disclosed range encompasses the claimed range of 0.01 μm or more and less than 1 μm. Where the claimed range lies within, or is encompassed by, a range disclosed in the prior art, a prima facie case of obviousness exists (see MPEP 2144.05(I)). It therefore would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have selected a pore size of 0.01 μm to less than 1 μm as claimed.
Regarding claim 7, SEIKO discloses that the characteristic of the activated sludge solution is measured before and after the chemical cleaning and that normal filtration operation is resumed based on the result of that measurement, in that the activated sludge is monitored before and after washing to confirm the absence of adverse effect and, if adversely affected, the sludge is conditioned before the filtration operation is restarted ([0095]), the worked embodiment of which is imaging the sludge after cleaning and restarting operation based on the imaging result ([0132]).
Regarding claim 8, SEIKO discloses that the information obtained by measuring the characteristic before and after cleaning is judged by judging means provided at a remote location connected by a communication device, in that the imaging and image-processing results of the activated sludge visualization device are connected to a remote monitoring server via the communication equipment (54), enabling remote monitoring, evaluation, and control of the wastewater treatment conditions (A)–(N) ([0117]). SEIKO further discloses that a control condition related to resumption of normal filtration operation is output when the judgment result satisfies a preset criterion, and that operation is controlled according to the output condition, in that the alarm output means (49) and control means (50) output an alarm and/or control condition upon deviation from the preset management range and the treatment conditions are then automatically controlled accordingly ([0111], [0115]).
Claim(s) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SEIKO (WO 2018181618 A1) in view of ISHIYAMA (JP 2005246283 A), and further in view of MASAKI (JP 2018192411 A) and MASASHI (JP H10128084 A).
Regarding claim 2, SEIKO additionally recites a preparatory operation satisfying Condition C — continuing aeration and performing a second preliminary filtration at a flux of 50% or more and 80% or less of the flux during the filtration operation — performed after the fouling-derived characteristic satisfies a preset second criterion (Formula 4: filter-paper-filtrate turbidity less than or equal to the pre-cleaning value plus 8 NTU), with normal filtration resumed thereafter upon satisfaction of the first criterion. As set forth above, SEIKO discloses the Condition A/B preliminary operation and the use of a monitored fouling-derived characteristic to gate resumption of filtration ([0035], [0132]). However, SEIKO does not disclose the intermediate 50%–80% flux stage of Condition C.
ISHIYAMA is directed to a method for operating an immersion-type membrane separation apparatus having a membrane module (2) immersed in a biological reaction tank (34), and teaches that, when filtration and membrane washing are alternately repeated, filtration is started at a permeate flux set to 50% or less of the target permeate flux and is then gradually or continuously increased to the target permeate flux within a prescribed time, after which the target flux is maintained until the next cleaning (claim 1; [0008]). ISHIYAMA further discloses that washing is performed while the module remains immersed, with aeration stopped only during the washing itself, such that aeration is present during the staged filtration ([0025]), and its worked example ramps the flux 0.2 to 0.3 to 0.4 to 0.5 to 0.6 m³/m²/day toward a target of 0.6 m³/m²/day, thereby passing through intermediate stages of approximately 50%, 67%, and 83% of the target — a range spanning the claimed 50%–80% window ([0029]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the post-cleaning restart procedure of SEIKO to include the staged flux increase through a 50%–80% intermediate level with continued aeration as taught by ISHIYAMA as it teaches that beginning filtration at a reduced flux and increasing it in stages to the target suppresses the rapid rise in membrane differential pressure at the start of operation, reduces the frequency of chemical cleaning, and extends the service life of the membrane ([0013]–[0014]). One of ordinary skill would have applied this staged ramp — a low stage followed by a moderate 50%–80% stage — to SEIKO's restart in order to obtain the same stability and membrane-life benefits, with a reasonable expectation of success given that both references operate immersion-type membrane separation apparatuses.
As to the second criterion of claim 2 (Formula 4, based on filter-paper-filtrate turbidity), SEIKO already discloses filter-paper-filtrate turbidity as a measure of the aqueous-phase suspended-matter (fouling) content ([0035]). The use of turbidity, and of an analogous raw-liquid quality parameter, as the management parameter for controlling membrane operation is further taught by MASAKI and MASASHI. MASAKI teaches adding a cake-layer-forming substance on the basis of raw-water turbidity in order to prevent and suppress fouling of the filtration membrane, with turbidity identified as a preferred management criterion (claim 1; [0002], [0003], [0026]). MASASHI teaches adjusting the permeate flux in accordance with the TOC concentration of the raw liquid in order to suppress membrane-surface contamination (claims 1–2; [0009], [0018]). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use turbidity (or TOC) as the management parameter gating the staged flux increase in the modified method. As with claim 1, the specific numeric bound of Formula 4 (pre-cleaning value plus 8 NTU) and the specific 50%–80% flux window are result-effective variables whose optimum values could be established through routine experimentation (MPEP 2144.05(II)).
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It is noted that any citations to specific, pages, columns, lines, or figures in the prior art references and any interpretation of the reference should not be considered to be limiting in any way. A reference is relevant for all it contains and may be relied upon for all that it would have reasonably suggested to one having ordinary skill in the art. See MPEP 2123.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Waqaas Ali whose telephone number is (571) 270-0235. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9-5 PM.
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/WAQAAS ALI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1777
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