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 .
This Office Action replaces the previous Office Action, which inadvertently omitted the treatment of claim 12 on the merits. Applicants' Attorney, Heather Flanagan, informed the current Examiner of record that claim 12 was inadvertently omitted from examination. The Examiner sincerely apologizes for the omission; all pending claims are hereby examined on the merits.
Status of Claims
No amendment to claims was made.
Claims 1-14 remain pending for examination and claims 15-21 remain withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s response to the rejection of recitation “majority” under 35 USC 112(b) is acknowledged and accepted. Therefore, the recitation “majority” will be interpreted as any amount greater than 50% as stated in the Office action mailed April 9, 2025.
Applicant’s statement with respect to rejection of claims under 35 USC 103 over Lin is correct. The examiners agreed, during the interview conducted on June 12, 2025, Lin is directed to a pressure swing adsorption whereas instant claims are directed to temperature swing adsorption.
The following is a new ground of Non-final rejection based upon new prior art.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 4, 11, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by “Oxygen pumping characteristics of YBaCo4O7+ẟ for solar thermochemical cycles” by Xu et al. (Chem. Eng. J. 389, 124026 (2020, 9 pages) (hereinafter “Xu”).
With respect to claims 1 and 13, Xu discloses a sorbent compound YBaCo4O7+ẟ for utilization in air separation comprising:
capturing oxygen at a temperature range of 200-325 oC (claimed step of adsorbing oxygen); and
releasing oxygen at a temperature over 400 oC (claimed steps of heating the sorbent and desorbing of oxygen), wherein the difference between the adsorption range of 200-325 oC and desorption temperature of over 400 oC encompasses the claimed difference of less than 400 oC. This desorbing step is the same as regenerating the sorbent as recited in claim 13.
See page 2, left column, 4th full paragraph.
With respect to claim 4, Xu’s disclosure would inherently include a step of flowing the air in a direction to contact the sorbent to adsorb the oxygen.
With respect to claim 13, Xu discloses varying oxygen partial pressure (see page 4, right column, 2nd paragraph).
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 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.
Claims 2 and 3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over “Oxygen pumping characteristics of YBaCo4O7+ẟ for solar thermochemical cycles” by Xu et al. (Chem. Eng. J. 389, 124026 (2020, 9 pages) (hereinafter “Xu”).
The disclosure of Xu is as discussed above.
Xu does not disclose (i) cooling the sorbent after desorbing the oxygen as called for in claim 2, and (ii) repeating steps of adsorption and desorption as called in for in claim 3.
However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to cool the sorbent to an adsorption temperature after desorption for purpose of recycling/reusing the sorbent and the temperature of the sorbent should be at the effective adsorption temperature, i.e., 275-325 oC. Recycling the sorbent would necessarily mean repeating adsorption and desorption steps as claimed. It is to be noted Xu further discloses the YBaCo4O7+ẟ has a good cyclability (see page 5, right column, 1st paragraph) which means the sorbent is reusable after desorption.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over “Oxygen pumping characteristics of YBaCo4O7+ẟ for solar thermochemical cycles” by Xu et al. (Chem. Eng. J. 389, 124026 (2020, 9 pages) (hereinafter “Xu”) in view of US Patent 5,294,418 to Ramprasad et al. (hereinafter “Ramprasad”).
Xu fails to disclose desorbing oxygen under a vacuum.
Ramprasad disclose a process for removing oxygen from an oxygen-containing fluid stream (Abstract). The temperature swing adsorption process employs a sorbent to adsorb oxygen from said fluid stream (col. 7, lines 58-62). The desorption of oxygen performed under heating and reducing the effective partial pressure of oxygen, partial evacuation to 0.1 to 0.3 atm (col. 8, lines 24-28).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to have modified the process of Xu by conducting desorption of oxygen under a vacuum to assist with the desorption as disclosed by Ramprasad.
Claims 6-10 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over “Oxygen pumping characteristics of YBaCo4O7+ẟ for solar thermochemical cycles” by Xu et al. (Chem. Eng. J. 389, 124026 (2020, 9 pages) (hereinafter “Xu”) in view of US Patent 6,059,858 to Lin et al. (hereinafter “Lin”).
Lin is directed to removal of oxygen from gas streams by contact the gas stream with a perovskite sorbent to a pressure swing adsorption (Abstract). Lin discloses during an adsorbent regeneration step, the adsorbent may be purged with a that is substantially free oxygen. Purge gases include steam and carbon dioxide among others. See col. 5, lines 64-67.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to have modified the process of Xu by employing purge gas in the desorption/regeneration of an adsorbent as disclosed by Lin because the purge gas would sweep the desorbed oxygen and prevent being re-adsorbed. It is acknowledged that Lin employs PSA whereas Xu and claimed process employ TSA. However, the employment of purge gas in the desorption stage is relevant to both PSA and TSA.
With respect to claim 8 directed to flue gas being a recycle flue gas, it is well known in the art flue gas is utilized as a purge gas and that flue gas is a recycled flue gas.
With respect to claims 9 and 10 directed to flowing the purge gas in a second direction through the sorbent in an opposite from the first direction, it is known in the art to have the purge gas in reverse direction of feed gas to remove the adsorbed specie, i.e., oxygen, and prevent from re-adsorption.
With respect to claim 14 directed to contacting an additional sorbent with an additional gas stream, Lin discloses an adsorption system comprising plurality of adsorption units which would include additional adsorbents and gas stream (col. 3, lines 38-42).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over “Oxygen pumping characteristics of YBaCo4O7+ẟ for solar thermochemical cycles” by Xu et al. (Chem. Eng. J. 389, 124026 (2020, 9 pages) (hereinafter “Xu”) in view of US 20040197612 to Keefer et al. (hereinafter “Keefer).
Xu fails to disclose claimed step of sending the second gas stream to an energy storage reactor.
Keefer is directed to a method of adsorptive gas separation (see [0002]). Keefer discloses a desorbed gas stream is sent to a fuel cell (see [0049]). Fuel cell is equivalent to claimed energy storage reactor.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary sill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the process of Xu by including a step of sending the desorbed gas to a fuel cell (equivalent to claimed energy storage reactor) because it can be further reused rather than discharging it to the atmosphere (see [0049]).
Conclusion
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/IN SUK C BULLOCK/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1772