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 .
Status of Claims
Claims 1, 3, and 4 are under examination.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 11/21/2025 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendments have overcome the new matter rejection, which is withdrawn.
Applicant’s amendments have necessitated an updated prior art search, the results of which are detailed below.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments, see Remarks dated 11/21/2025, have been fully considered but are moot in light of the new amendments, which are therefore addressed herein.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, the “communication passages” and the “opening of the calandria vault” (claim 1) must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered. If these structures are going to be explicitly claimed, then they must be shown and labeled in the Drawings.
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.
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.
Claims 1, 3, and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites “heavy water facility.” There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 1 recites “the outside.” There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the front and rear surfaces of the calandria" in line 17. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. The only mention of a front and rear surface thus far in the claim refer to the heavy water reactor facility including a calandria and a calandria vault. Therefore, it is unclear if the latter recitation of “the front and rear surfaces of the calandria” are intended to refer back to the front and rear surfaces of the heavy water reactor facility, the calandria, or the calandria vault. Specifically, it is unclear if the latter recitation of the front and rear surfaces refers back to the previous introduction of said features (in lines 9-10), and it is also unclear which structure’s front and rear surfaces are being referred to.
Claim 1 recites the limitation “the opening of the calandria vault is configured to be disposed to correspond to front and rear surfaces of the calandria.” The language “the opening … is configured to be disposed to correspond to …” is excessively wordy to the point that Examiner cannot reasonably determine a structural arrangement of the recited features. Where is the opening of the vault with regard to the front/rear surfaces of the calandria?
Any claim not specifically addressed in this section that depends from a rejected claim is also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) for its dependency upon an above–rejected claim and for the same reasons.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code 103 not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1, 3, and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Noel (US 2012/0207261 A1) in view of “JP876” (JP 3522876 B21) and “CN335” (CN 108756335 A2).
Regarding claim 1, Noel teaches (Fig. 1) an exposure prevention device for dismantling a heavy water reactor facility (invention may be used in a “heavy water” reactor facility, ¶ 22), comprising: a shielding block (exterior walls surrounding isolation zone 34 on which detectors 36 are placed) configured to be disposed at a front surface and a rear surface of a heavy water facility including a calandria (14) and a calandria vault (10) that is a wall structure accommodating the calandria; a plurality of radiation measuring instruments (36; the intrusion detection devices 36 may include microwave detectors, ¶ 25) installed on the shielding block, wherein the plurality of radiation measuring instruments are arranged at predetermined intervals to acquire information about radiation for each position along the front surface and the rear surface of the heavy water facility (instruments 36 are arranged on all four sides of the calandria vault 10 and the calandria 14 within, as shown in Fig. 1); and a motion detector (“motion detection cameras” in the intrusion detection devices 36, ¶ 25) installed on the shielding block and configured to detect an approach of a worker within a predetermined distance from the shielding block (a “motion detection camera” is designed to detect an approach of a person or other moving object—that is the purpose of its “motion detection”; Noel further explains it is “…configured to detect unauthorized approach toward the protected area,” ¶ 25), wherein the shielding block (exterior walls surrounding isolation zone 34 on which detectors 36 are placed) is configured to be disposed external to an opening of the calandria vault (10), and the opening of the calandria vault (10) is configured to be disposed to correspond to front and rear surfaces of the calandria (14) which are exposed to the outside for replacement of nuclear fuel (both the calandria and its vault necessarily comprise openings for fuel replacement).
Examiner notes that the claimed terms “calandria” and “calandria vault” correspond to the terms used by Noel “reactor” and “containment building,” respectively. The term “calandria” is used when describing heavy water facilities, which Noel states in ¶ 22 their invention may be used with.
Noel discloses that the instruments acquire information about radiation but not explicitly radiation dose.
JP876 is in the same art area of monitoring of nuclear reactors (abstract) and teaches a radiation measuring instrument that is arranged at predetermined intervals to acquire information about radiation dose distribution for each position (“Further, the depth information obtained from the depth gauge and the dose rate distribution in the reactor are sequentially loaded into the computer memory in the computer, and the expected radiation dose value received until the submersible body is recovered is calculated,” ¶ 10 on page 5).
The ordinary skilled artisan would have been motivated to utilize the dose distribution calculations taught by JP876 since, as explained by JP876 (¶ 10 on page 5), “the calculation means is provided to predict the remaining life dose of the parts related to the body of the diving equipment during the work in the reactor by adding the expected dose value, for example, the worker uses the diving equipment under the water in the reactor. When working, it is possible to know exactly in time how much work can be done at the place at the diving equipment position, and thus to be able to measure the exact remaining life dose and remaining life time in working in the reactor. It is possible to provide a safe working robot device in the reactor of this type.”
This combination does not explicitly teach the claimed relative location of the fuel replacement room. Specifically, Noel discloses (Fig. 1) the shielding block detectors (36) disposed between an opening of the calandria vault (10) and many other surrounding buildings (e.g., 20, 21, and numerous other, unlabeled buildings) but does not specify if any of these outside buildings has a fuel replacement room.
CN335 does. CN335 is in the same art area of nuclear reactor plant layouts (abstract) and teaches (Fig. 1) a reactor vault (1) with a surrounding perimeter (space between group of buildings 1/2/3/4/5/6) and a fuel replacement room (9; “new fuel plant 9,” page 4).
The ordinary skilled artisan would have been motivated to utilize the remote new fuel building 9 as suggested by CN335 because this separation from the main set of buildings (including the reactor 1) has the benefits, as detailed on page 3, that this separation permits the nuclear reactor and immediate components to have a higher safety tier without also having to include the new fuel building 9, which can instead be used, along with new fuel storage, as a multi-purpose building. Additionally, as also explained on page 3, the reactor enjoys a higher seismic safety category (“improve the shock resistance of….main plant”) without having to also apply these cumbersome safety standards to the multi-use building 9. Finally, making the new fuel building remote further is “more beneficial for radiation protection design and maintenance .. so as to improve the maintainability of the nuclear power plant, reduc[ing] [the] dose of workers,” page 3. All of these benefits arise from the separation of the main reactor components (1) from the new fuel building (9), since the latter does not pose the same safety threats (e.g., from earthquakes or from personnel radiation dose limits) as the former.
Regarding claim 3, modified Noel teaches all the elements of the parent claim, and JP876 additionally teaches a dose display unit (“TV monitor 35,” page 6) that is provided in a shielding block (fig. 2) and displays the dose determined by the radiation measuring instruments (e.g., “remaining life dose…displayed on the TV monitor 35,” page 9) for each of the predetermined positions.
The skilled artisan would have been motivated to utilize the dose display unit of JP876 within the apparatus of modified Noel in order to provide a “warning” to the operator so they are “informed of the limit of the used parts and the instruction of recovery,” page 8, final line – page 9, fourth line.
Regarding claim 4, modified Noel teaches all the elements of the parent claim. Noel additionally discloses a warning unit (“alarms,” ¶ 25) that is connected to the motion detector (“monitored with automated [and recording] intrusion detection sensors and alarms,” ¶ 16; “alarms in the protected area…as set forth in 10 C.F.R. §73.55,” ¶ 25 and Examiner notes that §73.553 requires a warning/alarm connected to the motion detector, e.g., “(B) Monitored with intrusion detection equipment…and be capable of detecting both attempted and actual penetration of the protected area perimeter barrier before completed penetration of the protected area perimeter barrier; and (C) Monitored with assessment equipment…and provide real-time and play-back/recorded video images of the detected activities before and after each alarm annunciation”), and emits a warning when a motion is detected by the motion detector, wherein the warning unit comprises at least one of a warning light and a warning speaker (“alarms,” ¶ 16), and is configured to issue a visual or audible warning to a worker when the motion detector detects an approach within the predetermined distance (as cited above in §73.55, which describes “alarm annunciation” per intruder detection).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LILY C GARNER whose telephone number is (571)272-9587. The examiner can normally be reached 9-5 CT.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jack Keith can be reached at (571) 272-6878. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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LILY CRABTREE GARNER
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3646
/LILY C GARNER/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3646
1 see 20-page foreign reference in the file 8/21/2025.
2 see attached 11-page foreign reference.
3 https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part073/part073-0055.html