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 and Application
This final action on the merits is in response to remarks received by the office on 12 December 2025. Claims 1-6, 16-26 are pending. No claims are amended, added or cancelled. Claims 16-26 are withdrawn as nonelected.
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) 1, 2, and 4-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent 5,106,404 to David C.H. Grant (‘404) hereafter in view of U.S. Patent 4,708,721 to Arthur J Ehrler (‘721 hereafter).
Regarding claim 1, ‘404 teaches an apparatus comprising: a treatment chamber (Fig 1 item 12); a condenser (Fig 1 item 68); a secondary chamber fluidically disposed between the condenser and the treatment chamber (Fig 1 item 30); and a pump (Fig 1 item 60), wherein the treatment chamber , the condenser, the secondary chamber and the pump are configured to operate in a mode of operation having a closed fluidic loop such that (a) the pump draws fluid from the treatment chamber (Fig 1 item 60), (b) the condenser is fluidically disposed in a loop between the pump and the treatment chamber to form, via heat exchange, condensate and non-condensate portions of the fluid drawn by the pump from the treatment chamber (Fig 1 item 68). ‘404 does not teach that the secondary chamber creates a secondary non-condensate or condensate portions from the non-condensate portion of the condenser outflow.
In the same field of endeavor, pollutant recovery and recycling, ‘721 teaches the secondary chamber receives the non-condensate portion from the condenser to form, via natural condensation, secondary condensate and secondary non-condensate portions from the non-condensate portion and return the secondary non-condensate portion to the treatment chamber (Fig 2 item 91, 92, and 97) for the benefit of reducing the release of pollutant chemicals and the efficient reuse of recoverable process materials. It would have been obvious to one possessed of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to combine the teaching of ‘404 with that of ‘721 for the benefit of reducing the release of pollutant chemicals and the efficient reuse of recoverable process materials.
Regarding claim 2, ‘404 teaches the apparatus wherein the treatment chamber comprises at least one heater and at least one disperser (Fig 1 item 15 and C4L27-C4L46).
Regarding claim 4, ‘404 teaches the apparatus wherein the secondary chamber and the condenser comprise an outlet to remove the condensate portion of the fluid and the additional condensate, respectively (FIG 1 items 44 and 80).
Regarding claim 4, ‘404 teaches the apparatus wherein the condenser comprises outlets to at which the non-condensate portion is output (Fig 1 item 80). Regarding the secondary chamber, ‘721 teaches the secondary chamber comprises an outlet to at which the secondary non-condensate fraction is output (Fig 2 item 97) for the benefit of reducing the release of pollutant chemicals and the efficient reuse of recoverable process materials. It would have been obvious to one possessed of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to combine the teaching of ‘404 with that of ‘721 for the benefit of reducing the release of pollutant chemicals and the efficient reuse of recoverable process materials.
Regarding claim 5, ‘404 in view of ‘721 renders obvious the apparatus as claimed in claim 1 including meeting conditions (a), (b) and (c), further ‘404 teaches as discussed in the abstract that the apparatus is controlled in order to carry out its intended function (Fig 1 items 40, 42, 50, 58, 94, 102, C5L22-C5L29) . It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to have the apparatus of claim 1 as discussed above controlled to perform the intended function.
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ‘404 in view of ‘721 as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of GB 2560073 A to Crabtree et al. (‘073 hereafter), made of record per applicant disclosure.
Regarding claim 3, ‘404 does not teach the position of the claimed heater and disperser within the treatment chamber. In the related art of part manufacturing cleaning and after-treatment, 073 teaches the apparatus as claimed wherein the heater and the disperser is disposed inside at the base of the treatment chamber (Fig 1 items 108 and 116 and Fig 7 item 408) for the benefit of controlling the liquid/vapor fractions of the solvent in the treatment chamber. It would have been obvious to one possessed of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to combine the teachings of ‘404 with those of ‘073 for the benefit of controlling the solvent liquid/vapor fraction within the treatment chamber.
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ‘404 in view of ‘721 as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of case law reasoning.
Regarding claim 6, while ‘404 does not expressly relate size of the secondary chamber as being between greater than zero and less than 90% the size of the treatment chamber (examiner’s note: the claim recites the limitation ‘wherein the secondary chamber is substantially smaller than the treatment chamber.’ This limitation is defined in the instant specification to be the above range in paragraph 0020), one possessed of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing could have arrived at the claimed volumetric ratio between these two operating units since it has been held that the routine optimization involves only routine skill in the art. One possessed of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing would have been motivated to minimize the size of the secondary chamber for the purpose of maintaining the pressure of the compressed gas flowing therethrough so as to optimally condense the condensable fraction. Further, the ordinary artisan would have been motivated to enlarge the treatment chamber for the purpose of treating more parts at once or larger parts.
Response to Arguments
In support of the patentability of the instant claims, applicant has argued that the previous and above applied prior art rejection does not teach all of the limitations of the claim. This argument is not persuasive as applicant’s arguments were directed to the limitations reciting intended uses of the claimed apparatus. The applied prior art combination teaches the structural limitations of the claims and is capable of being used in the intended manner. Applicant is reminded that the manner of operating the claimed apparatus does not differentiate an apparatus claim from the prior art (See MPEP 2114 (II)). An apparatus claim[] cover[s] what a device is, not what a device does” Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Bausch & Lomb Inc., 909 F.2d 1464, 1469, 15 USPQ2d 1525, 1528 (Fed. Cir. 1990).
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/JPR/Examiner, Art Unit 1743
/GALEN H HAUTH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1743