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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 02/17/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
This office action is in response to the RCE filed on 02/17/2026.
Claims 1, 3, 6, 8, 17-18, 20, 22-23 are presently pending; claims 2, 4-5, 7, 9-14, 13(2)-17(2), 19 and 24 are canceled; claims 17, 18, 20 and 22-23 are withdrawn; claims 1, 3, 6, 8, 17 and 18 are amended; claims 1, 3, 6 and 8 are under examination.
The rejections of claim 5 under 35 U.S.C 112(b) and 112(d) are moot as this claim has been canceled.
The 35 U.S.C. 103 rejections of claims 1 and 6 over GUO in view of MISAWA, claim 3 over GUO in view of MISAWA and OGDEN, and claim 8 over GUO in view of MISAWA and ZHAO are withdrawn in light of the amendments to the claims; the rejections of claims 2 and 5 are moot as these claims have been canceled.
New grounds of rejection are present herein.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1, 3 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Misawa, et al. (JP-H111361-A) (hereinafter, “MISAWA”; citations herein refer to the attached machine translation) in view of Feng (CN-109485345-A) (hereinafter, “FENG”) and Labib, “Fibre Reinforced Cement Composites”, Cement Based Materials, published online 10 October 2018 (hereinafter, “LABIB”).
Regarding claim 1, MISAWA teaches a cementitious material consisting of a cement, a reclaimed asphalt pavement, and water (see MISAWA at Abstract and paragraphs [0010]-[0012]).
However, MISAWA does not explicitly teach a first or second recycled fiber reinforcement material.
FENG teaches a cementitious material comprising cement, water, and a first recycled carbon fiber and second steel fiber (see FENG at Abstract and paragraph 29). FENG teaches that including a combination of both a recycled carbon fiber and a steel fiber improves tensile stress, prevents expansion of macroscopic cracks, enhances compressive strength and tensile strength, and increases the flexural strength, toughness, impact force, durability and service period of concrete (see FENG at Abstract and paragraphs 6, 8, 29-31 and 72). FENG discloses that the carbon fibers are recycled, thereby mitigating environmental pollution (see FENG at paragraphs 5 and 29), but does not mention that the steel fibers are recycled.
However, it is known in the art that recycled steel fibers are used to reinforce concrete. LABIB teaches that using steel fibers recycled from waste tires has beneficial environmental and economic impacts and significantly decreases the brittle behavior of cement-based materials by improving their toughness and post-cracking resistance while helping to save natural resources, decreasing pollution of the environment and saving energy (see LABIB at §5.3).
Therefore, 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 cementitious material of MISAWA by including a first recycled carbon fiber and a second steel fiber, as taught by FENG (see FENG at Abstract and paragraph 29), and using steel fibers recycled from tires as the steel fiber, as taught by LABIB (see LABIB at §5.3). One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to make this modification for the benefit of improving tensile stress, preventing expansion of macroscopic cracks, enhancing compressive strength and tensile strength, and increasing the flexural strength, toughness, impact force, durability and service period of the concrete while mitigating environmental pollution as taught by FENG (see FENG at Abstract and paragraphs 5-6, 8, 29-31 and 72) and improving toughness and post-cracking resistance while helping to save natural resources, decreasing pollution of the environment and saving energy as taught by LABIB (see LABIB at §5.3).
Regarding claim 3, as applied to claim 1 above, MISAWA in view of FENG and LABIB teaches a cementitious material according to claim 1, wherein the second recycled fiber reinforcement material is recycled carbon fiber (see FENG at Abstract and paragraph 29).
Regarding claim 6, as applied to claim 1 above, MISAWA in view of FENG and LABIB teaches a cementitious material according to claim 1, wherein the first recycled fiber reinforcement material is recycled steel fiber from scrap tires (see FENG at Abstract; see LABIB at §5.3).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over MISAWA in view of FENG and LABIB as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Zhao (CN-105256709-A) (hereinafter, “ZHAO”; citations herein refer to the machine translation provided with a previous office action).
Regarding claim 8, as applied to claim 1 above, MISAWA in view of FENG and LABIB teaches a cementitious material according to claim 1. MISAWA teaches that the cement comprises 20% by weight thereof (see MISAWA at paragraph [0012]), but does not mention volume percentage.
ZHAO teaches a fiber-reinforced concrete cement composite comprising cementitious material, fibers, aggregate and water, wherein the cement comprises 20% by volume of the cement composite material (see ZHAO at Abstract and paragraph 117). ZHAO teaches that using 20% by volume of cement can form an ultra-high performance concrete cement composite having enhanced mechanical properties such as high strength and toughness (see ZHAO at Abstract and paragraphs 66 and 117).
Therefore, 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 cementitious material of MISAWA in view of FENG and LABIB by utilizing cement in an amount of 20% by volume as taught by ZHAO (see ZHAO at paragraph 117). One of ordinary skill in the art would could have used cement in an amount of 20% by volume with a reasonable expectation of success, yielding the predictable result of forming a usable, high-performance concrete cement composite (see ZHAO at Abstract and paragraphs 66 and 117).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 12/16/025 with respect to claims 1, 3, 6 and 8 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to the new combination of references as set forth in the grounds of rejection above.
Conclusion
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/S.C.C./Examiner, Art Unit 1731
/ANTHONY J GREEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1731