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
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I, claims 1-17, 19, and 20 in the reply filed on 2/26/2026 is acknowledged.
Claim 33 is withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected apparatus, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 2/26/2026.
Claim Objections
Claim 2 is objected to because of the following informalities: “selected from selected from” should be “selected from”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 6 is objected to because of the following informalities: “where in” should be “wherein”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 16 is objected to because of the following informalities: “and a has a” should be “and has a”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 17 is objected to because of the following informalities: “and a has a” should be “and has a”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1-5, 7-9, 11-14, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wainer (U.S. Pat. No. 3,912,664).
Regarding Claim 1, Wainer teaches methods of recycling polyvinylidene chloride mixtures (Abstract), such as composites with polyolefins (Table 3) comprising subjecting composite to polar aprotic solvent, dissolving chlorinated polymer material, separating undissolved material from dissolved chlorinated polymer solution, and collecting undissolved material, whereby the resulting yield of chlorinated polymer is in excess of 99% of that within the original composition, implying less than 1 wt% of chlorinated polymer remains in the undissolved solids (Col. 13, Lines 1-20; Tables 1-4).
Regarding Claims 2 and 3, Wainer teaches the use of 100 wt% N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone as solvent (Tables 1 and 4).
Regarding Claim 4, Wainer teaches solvents such as 100 wt% gamma-butyrolactone (Tables 1 and 3), a dipolar aprotic solvent. The limitation “cellulose derived” is an embedded product-by-process limitation. Although not indicating whether such solvents are petroleum or cellulose derived, the disclosure of Wainer meets the limitation as the solvent of Weimer is no different in structure than what would otherwise be obtained from sources such as cellulose.
Regarding Claim 5, Weimer teaches chopping the scrap materials to small pieces (Figure 1; Col. 4, Lines 36-38), reading on grinding/shredding prior to dissolution.
Regarding Claim 7, Weimer teaches precipitating chlorinated polymer material from solution (Figure 1).
Regarding Claim 8, Weimer teaches embodiments where more than 99 wt% of chlorinated polymer is recovered separate from copper and other impurities present in the raw material (Col. 13, Lines 57-62).
Regarding Claim 9, Weimer teaches dissolution temperatures spanning 25-50 degrees C (Table 4).
Regarding Claim 11, Weimer teaches examples where chlorinated polymer constitutes greater than 1 wt% of the composition (Table 3).
Regarding Claim 12, Weimer teaches dissolution times spanning 15-60 minutes (Table 4).
Regarding Claim 13, Weimer does not allude to a vacuum or pressurized vessel being used. Therefore, it is implied such dissolutions occur roughly at atmospheric pressure.
Regarding Claim 14, Weimer teaches embodiments where 400 mL of NMP solvent is used relative to 100 g of substrate (Table 4). Given the density of NMP (1.03 g/mL), the weight ratio of solvent:substrate exceeds 30:70.
Regarding Claim 19, Weimer teaches embodiments where the substrates used do not include metals (Batches B and C of Table 3).
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.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 6 and 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wainer (U.S. Pat. No. 3,912,664) in view of Noh (KR2016-0066640A; cited 5/16/2023). As the cited KR publication is in a non-English language, the machine-translated version of the publication received 5/16/2023 will be cited to.
Wainer teaches methods of recycling polyvinylidene chloride mixtures (Abstract), such as composites with polyolefins (Table 3) comprising subjecting composite to polar aprotic solvent, dissolving chlorinated polymer material, separating undissolved material from dissolved chlorinated polymer solution, and collecting undissolved material, whereby the resulting yield of chlorinated polymer is in excess of 99% of that within the original composition, implying less than 1 wt% of chlorinated polymer remains in the undissolved solids (Col. 13, Lines 1-20; Tables 1-4).
Regarding Claims 6 and 10, Wainer differs from the subject matter claimed in that multilayered barrier films of PVDF/polyolefin are not described. Noh teaches barrier films, composed of a polyolefin substrate and PDVF film formed via coating (¶ 4, 32-33; Examples). Noh indicates the PVDFs have solubility in aprotic polar solvents (¶ 12-13). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to recycle waste barrier films such as those of Noh using the protocols of Wainer because doing so would afford re-use of the processed materials and avoid otherwise landfill disposal of materials as taught by Wainer (Col. 1, Line 33 to Col. 2, Line 3).
Noh teaches the substrates may have thicknesses of 30-125 microns and the PVDF film have thicknesses of 1-15 microns (¶ 73-75). Accordingly, Noh is seen to suggest embodiments where the resulting composite material is at least 50 wt% of substrate material such as polyolefin.
Claim(s) 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wainer (U.S. Pat. No. 3,912,664) in view of Noh (KR2016-0066640A; cited 5/16/2023) and Al-Salem (Waste Management 2009, 29, 2625-2643; cited 5/16/2023). As the cited KR publication is in a non-English language, the machine-translated version of the publication received 5/16/2023 will be cited to.
The discussion regarding Wainer and Noh within ¶ 26-28 is incorporated herein by reference.
Regarding Claim 20, the cited art differs from the subject matter claimed with respect to the further processing of undissolved waste material via rinsing, melting, and pelletizing. In this regard, Al-Salem teaches mechanical recycling of recovered waste plastics is well known in the art, typically entailing separating plastics by type, washing/rinsing waste materials, melt extrusion, and subsequently granulating/pelletizing to be sold for plastics production (Section 3.2; Figure 3). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to further rinse, melt extrude, and pelletize the undissolved plastic material of Wainer/Noh because doing so would facilitate the processing/production of granules suitable for sale as recycled plastic material as taught by Al-Salem.
Related Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Peterson (US 2010/0228067 A1) and van Walsem (U.S. Pat. No. 9,084,467) describes the creation of organics/solvents from natural carbon resources such as cellulose.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 15 is 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.
Claims 16 and 17 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the objection(s) set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to STEPHEN E RIETH whose telephone number is (571)272-6274. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8AM-4PM Mountain Standard Time.
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/STEPHEN E RIETH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1759
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