DETAILED ACTION
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of group II, claims 8-10 in the reply filed on December 19, 2025 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that the office failed to demonstrate serious search and/or examination burden. This is not found persuasive because, as stated in the restriction, the inventions include a ceramic product and a method for making a ceramic product, and these distinct inventions require different fields of search and search strategies, thus presenting a serious search burden.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities: lines 4 and 5 of claim 8 appears to have overlapped, thereby creating a typographical issue. Since claim 8 is labelled original, the claim set submitted June 12, 2013 will be relied upon for claim 8. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 8-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 8 recites “according to claim 1”. However, because this is recited in the preamble, it is unclear if the limitations of claim 1 are required for the method claim. It is unclear if all of the limitations or some of the limitations of claim 1 are required. It is recommended to amend claim 8 to incorporate the limitations of claim 1.
Furthermore, if claim 8 is to include the limitations of claim 1, then it is unclear what happens to the ZrO2 powder, as there is no step for incorporating the material.
Claim 8 recites multiple limitations without sufficient antecedent basis for the limitations in the claim, including “the components”, “the composition”, “the weights”, “the borate-glass”, “the Na2O powder”, “the purple powder”, “the quartz powder”, ”the Li2O powder”, “the binder”, and “the sintering temperature”.
Claim 8 recites the limitation ”mixing to even” in steps 1, 2, and 5. It is unclear what “to even” means. What is being made even? Please clarify.
Claims 9-10, by virtue of their dependency on claim 8, are also indefinite.
Remarks
The closest prior art include the following.
Gu et al. (CN 104030660) teaches a method for producing a ceramic material from raw materials comprising purple clay and a boron mud, which comprises boron trioxide and silica, wherein the materials are ground and mixed, pressed molded into a shape and sintered.
Zhao et al. (CN 112679202) teaches a method for producing a porous ceramic comprising mixing raw materials including purple clay, quartz sand, and glass powder, and sintering the mixture (pages 2-3).
Wang et al. (CN 110510990) teaches a method for producing a porous ceramic comprising weighing and mixing raw materials including purple clay powder and tourmaline powder (a borosilicate mineral), and a binder (i.e. water glass), grinding the powders, pressing and forming a ceramic body, and sintering at a low temperature of 750-840°C for 1-3 hours (bottom of page 2, tope of page 4).
Zhong (CN 107352959) teaches a common method for producing porous ceramics comprises forming a first mixture comprising glass by mixing, grinding and sieving successively, forming a second mixture comprising purple clay by mixing, grinding, and sieving successively, then mixing the first and second mixtures and granulating, and heat press mold and sintering the combined mixture (page 2).
Lee (KR 101431001) teaches a method comprising mixing boron oxide powder and silicon oxide powder with sodium oxide powder, fusing the mixed powder and making a material powder.
The prior art fails to teach a method for manufacturing a porous ceramic material using a powder of raw material having a composition comprising 27.5-50 wt% borate-glass sand, 15-20 wt% purple clay powder, 20-50% wt% quartz powder, 6-12wt% Na2O powder, 1-2 wt% ZrO2 powder, and 0.5-1.5 wt% Li2O powder.
Since withdrawn claim 1 also recites the same composition of powder of raw material, and in the event the applicant want to rejoin the withdrawn claims, it is recommended to amend the claim to replace “wherein” with “comprising”, and the “and” following Li2O powder with “wherein”.
Furthermore, withdrawn claims 17-20 recite the same preamble as the product claim 1, but reference the method claim 8. Please correct the preambles to be the same as the preamble of claim 8, to avoid duplication of claims.
Conclusion
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/QUEENIE S DEHGHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1741
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