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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 14 May 2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s amendment to claim 1 is clearly sufficient to overcome the obviousness rejections set forth in the prior Office action based upon Shinoyama et al in view of Scoville and Dukes et al. None of these references teaches using a conductivity sensor on the outlet of the cathode chamber to determine that the hydroxide concentration was too high and to increase the flow rate of water through the cathode chamber in response to the measured conductivity being too high. However, further search was conducted in view of the new features resulting in the new grounds of rejection presented below.
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.
Claims 1, 3-6 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shinoyama et al (JP 2000-265289) in view of Scoville (US 4,329,215 A) and Karren et al (US 2019/0263691 A1).
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Shinoyama et al teach (see fig. 1, reproduced herein, paragraph [0010]) a sodium hypochlorite producing system. The system included a salt tank (9 & 11) configured to store solid-phase salt, an electrolysis unit (electrolytic cell (2)), which included an anode chamber (5) and a cathode chamber (3) which are partitioned by a separator (1). The anode chamber accepts saturated salt water (produced in 11) and the cathode chamber accepts water (15). The system of Shinoyama et al included a hypochlorite reaction unit (20) which reacted the entire amount of the anodic product with the entire amount of the cathodic product to form sodium hypochlorite and hydrogen gas. The reaction unit (20) of Shinoyama et al was both downstream of, and formed as an integral unit with, the electrolysis unit. Lastly, Shinoyama et al teach (see paragraph [0008]) that the separator (1) was a cation exchange membrane which prevented the movement of hydroxide anions from the cathode chamber to the anode chamber.
Thus, Shinoyama et al fail to teach (1) a raw water treatment unit and a salt water treatment unit and (2) a “material balance control unit” as claimed.
Regarding (1), Scoville teaches (see abstract, figs. 1 and 2, col. 2, line 40 to col. 4, line 18) in the field of electrolytic production of sodium hypochlorite, providing water to the divided electrolysis cell via which has first been subjected to a softening treatment in a raw water treatment unit (10) for removal of calcium and magnesium cations. The system provided a portion of the softened water to the cathode chamber (44) via a line (34) and another portion of the softened water to a salt tank (11) for formation of a saturated brine which is provided to the anode chamber (43) via a line (31). The system further included a salt water treatment unit (filter 33) for treatment of the salt water.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have incorporated the water softening unit, salt tank, and salt treatment unit taught by Scoville in the apparatus of Shinoyama et al to permit the production of sodium hypochlorite even from a source of water that possessed high hardness (calcium and magnesium content).
Regarding (2), in the same field of endeavor of the electrolytic production of sodium hypochlorite solutions, Karren et al teach (see abstract, paragraphs [0129]-[0132]) providing a conductivity sensor installed at the cathode chamber to measure the conductivity of the cathode chamber product and a flow rate controller (implicitly required by “increase the flowrate of electrolyte solution through the cell”) to control the amount of water being supplied to the cathode chamber according to a signal of the conductivity sensor. Karren et al recognized that the conductivity of the catholyte being too high could be caused by the pH of the catholyte being outside of a desired range or the electrolyte concentration of the catholyte being too high. Both of these equate to the concentration of the sodium hydroxide product in the catholyte being too high and the flow rate controller of Karren et al acted to dilute the catholyte by increasing the flow rate of water to the cathode chamber. This action inherently produced the effect of decreasing the concentration gradient of hydroxide ions across the separator between the cathode chamber and the anode chamber thereby reducing migration of the hydroxide ions through the separator.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have added the conductivity sensor and flow rate controller as taught by Karren et al to the system of Shinoyama et al because Karren et al teach that the catholyte conductivity was a result effective variables that indicated problems with either the pH or electrolyte concentration in the catholyte and that the measured catholyte conductivity should be used to control the flow rate of water to the cathode chamber to bring the catholyte conductivity back into the desired range to achieve stable catholyte concentrations.
With respect to the claim limitation “a material balance control unit”, the name of the unit relates to the intended use of the claimed structure and fails to impart additional structural limitations.
Regarding claims 3-6, as noted with respect to claim 1 above, the separator of Shinoyama et al was a cation exchange membrane that had permeability to cations and which included cation-exchange functional groups throughout the membrane, including on the surface as required by claim 5.
Regarding claim 10, the system of Shinoyama et al also provided a gas-liquid separation unit (23) for separating and discharging hydrogen gas from the mixture as claimed.
Conclusion
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/HARRY D WILKINS III/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1794
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