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 .
Election/Restrictions
Claims 7-9 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected claim group, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on September 16, 2025.
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 1-6 and 10-13 in the reply filed on September 16, 2025 is acknowledged.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 5-6, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Toshitaka (WO 2019027047 A1), and further in view of Liu (US 20060090651).
Regarding claim 1, Toshitaka discloses “an adsorption member which has a plurality of flow paths extending in the axial direction separated by porous partition walls, and which adsorbs and removes foreign matter in the water to be treated by passing water through the plurality of flow paths” (Toshitaka [0023]) . The partition walls disclosed in the prior art are further stated to contain a porous ceramic substrate coating and a layer of metal oxide particles (Toshitaka [0023]).
While Toshitaka does not disclose the ratio between the surface area of the pores at 6-10nm to the surface area of pores at 1 to 100nm. Lui discloses a ceramic membrane that contains pores which have a diameter between the size of 10nm to 20µm. These pores make up 20% or more of the total pore volume (Liu [0080]). This means that up to 80% pore volume would be contained within pores that have a diameter between 1-10nm. Based on the inversely proportional relationship between surface area and volume, the high volume of the pores below 10nm would mean that those pores would make up a large percentage of the total pore surface area, resulting a ratio that would overlap with the claimed value of 49.3% Therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would combine the teachings of Liu to Toshitaka, in order to synthesize a product with a high percentage of surface area to volume, with the intention of increasing the efficiency to adsorb and remove foreign matter from the water that passes through the absorbent material specified in Toshitaka.
Regarding claim 2, Toshitaka discloses the preferred metal oxide used to coat the partition walls is alumina (Toshitaka[0025]). Therefore, this disclosure fulfills the limitation set by the instant claim requiring the metal oxide to be alumina.
Regarding claim 5, Toshitaka discloses the thickness of the metal oxide particles to be between 0.3 to 0.8µm (Toshitaka[0073]). This disclosure fulfills the limitation set in the instant claim requiring the thickness of the particle layer of the metal oxide to be between 0.1 to 2.0 µm.
Regarding claim 6, Toshitaka discloses the use of cordierite in the ceramic material as the main crystal phase (Toshitaka[0051]). This disclosure fulfills the limitation set in the instant claim requiring the ceramic material to be composed of cordierite as the main crystal phase.
Claim(s) 3,10, and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Toshitaka (WO 2019027047 A1), and further in view of Shinya (JP 2013023419 A).
Regarding claim 3, Toshitaka discloses the use of gamma alumina (Toshitaka [0022]), however, the dimensions of the crystalline material are not given. In Shinya the alumina nanorods are disclosed to have a minor axis length of 5-30nm and a major axis length of 20-1000 nm (Shinya [0039]). While the ranges in Shinya are broad, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the optimum or workable ranges within the parameters given by Shinya, in order to result in a gamma alumina material that would maintain a good level of dispersibility.
Regarding claim 10, Toshitaka discloses an adsorption member composed of “an adsorption member which has a plurality of flow paths extending in the axial direction separated by porous partition walls, and which adsorbs and removes foreign matter in the water to be treated by passing water through the plurality of flow paths” (Toshitaka [0023]) . The partition walls disclosed in the prior art are further stated to contain a porous ceramic substrate coating and a layer of metal oxide particles (Toshitaka [0023]).
While Toshitaka does disclose the use of gamma alumina (Toshitaka [0022]) the dimensions of the crystalline material are not given. However, in Shinya the alumina nanorods are disclosed to have a minor axis length of 5-30nm and a major axis length of 20-1000 nm (Shinya [0039]). While the ranges in Shinya are broad, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the optimum or workable ranges within the parameters given by Shinya, in order to result in a gamma alumina material that would maintain a good level of dispersibility.
Regarding claim 13, Toshitaka discloses the use of cordierite in the ceramic material as the main crystal phase (Toshitaka[0051]). This disclosure fulfills the limitation set in the instant claim requiring the ceramic material to be composed of cordierite as the main crystal phase.
Claim(s) 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Toshitaka (WO 2019027047 A1), in view of Liu (US 20060090651) and further in view of Shinya (JP 2013023419 A).
Regarding claim 12,Toshitaka does not disclose the ratio between the surface area of the pores at 6-10nm to the surface area of pores at 1 to 100nm. However, Lui discloses a ceramic membrane where pores that have a diameter between of 10nm to 20µm and make up 20% or more of the total pore volume (Liu [0080]). This means that up to 80% pore volume would be contained within pores that have a diameter between 1-10nm. Based on the inversely proportional relationship between surface area and volume, the high volume of the pores below 10nm would mean that those pores would make up a large percentage of the total pore surface area, resulting in a percentage that would overlap with the claimed value of 49.3% or more . Therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would combine the teachings of Liu to Toshitaka, in order to synthesize a product with a high percentage of surface area to volume, with the intention of increasing the efficiency to adsorb and remove foreign matter from the water that passes through the absorbent material specified in Toshitaka..
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 and 11 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The while prior references such as Toshitaka (WO 2019027047 A1) teach an absorbent member with alpha and gamma alumina (Toshitaka [0022]). Neither Toshitaka, nor Schmitt and Shinya, provide the proportions of alpha to gamma alumina or utilize thin x ray diffraction to determine the abundance ratio of the crystal alumina. Therefore, claims 4 and 11 are considered novel and nonobvious.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANNETTE H PHAN whose telephone number is (703)756-4520. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-6:30 EST.
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/ANNETTE PHAN/Examiner, Art Unit 1736
/ANTHONY J ZIMMER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1736