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 .
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 (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 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.
Claim(s) 17 and 18 are is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nippon Suisan Kaisha Ltd. (JP2019135948A) (hereinafter Nippon). Nippon discloses a method for breeding cephalopod larvae during a floating breeding period (paragraph [0031]) in a breeding aquarium. Nippon, however, does not indicate that the density of protozoa (such as flagellates and ciliates) in the water of the breeding aquarium is brought to 350 individuals/mL or less. In the field of fishery, it is widely known that protozoa have a negative impact on bred subjects, therefore it is considered obvious and a person skilled in the art therefore could easily conceive of controlling the number of protozoa in the water of a breeding aquarium to be as small as possible.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-16, 19-68 are allowed.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The cited prior art shows an example of a fish artificial breeding method.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YVONNE ABBOTT whose telephone number is 571-272-6896. The examiner can normally be reached 7am -5:30pmEST Monday- Thursday.
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/YVONNE R ABBOTT-LEWIS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3644
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