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 .
Priority
Applicant’s claim of priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 to Republic of Korea Application KR 10-2023-0075434 filed June 13, 2023, is hereby acknowledged.
Election/Restriction
Applicant’s election, without traverse, of Group I (claims 1-11) in the reply filed on July 21, 2026, to the restriction requirement dated May 21, 2026, is hereby acknowledged.
Accordingly, claims 1-11 have been examined in the instant Office action, whereas claims 12-28 have been withdrawn from consideration as drawn to a nonelected invention but remain pending with the present application.
Claim Objections
Claims 7 and 11 are objected to because of the following informalities: the terms “benzyl” and “more” are misspelled in lines 3 and 2, respectively, of these claims.
Appropriate correction is required in a subsequent reply to this action.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
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 1-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103 as unpatentable over Bai (US 2024/0425371 A1 to Bai et al., published December 26, 2024, which possesses an effective filing date of October 9, 2021).
Bai discloses a method for producing hydrogen peroxide, via an anthraquinone process of a working solution, wherein the solution contains an aromatic hydrocarbon, an imide derivative, a phosphate compound; and a butyl-carbinol compound, wherein the solution composition provides good solubility of anthraquinones, low inter-solubility with water and stable physicochemical properties, wherein the aromatic hydrocarbon can be mesitylene, pseudocumene, cumene, methyl-ethylbenzene or an ethyl-methyl benzene (abstract; [0001]; [0029]; [0030]; [0032] to [0050]; [0052], Example 1-1 to 1-5; anthraquinone is recited in present claim 4 as an aromatic ketone (carbonyl compound)). The organic solvent of the solution can be xylene, trimethylbenzene, chlorobenzene, N,N-dimethylformamide, ethyl acetate, pyridine or combinations thereof, wherein the organic solvent is present in an amount of 2-10 mL/g relative to the total amount of carboxylic acids ([0063]; [0071]; [0082]; present claim 11).
Bai discloses using the working solution for producing hydrogen peroxide through an anthraquinone process that comprises the solvent system and a working carrier, wherein the working carrier is selected from anthraquinone and alkyl substituted derivatives thereof, such as 2-alkyl anthraquinone or 2,6-dialkyl anthraquinone, wherein the working carrier has a concentration of at least 10 g/L based on the volume of the working, and wherein the process for producing hydrogen peroxide through anthraquinone process can include steps of hydrogenation, oxidation, extraction and post-treatment of the working solution to be recycled ([0082] to [0087]).
As discussed above, Bai discloses the low solubility of its anthraquinone solvent, and it further discloses determining the solubility of the anthraquinone and anthrahydroquinone in different working solution/solvent systems by measuring it using a “solid-liquid dissolution equilibrium method” ([0097] to [0099]). However, Bai does not disclose the octanol-water partition coefficient of Equation 1 as recited in present claims 9 and 10. Further, Bai may not expressly disclose all the weight percentages/volume ratios recited in the present claims.
However, it would have been within the purview of a person of ordinary skill in this art, at the time of the filing of the present application, to optimize the weight percentages, volume ratios, and solubility of the components of its organic working solution because these are result-effect values of the organic working solution. Thus, the resultant enhanced properties of the resultant organic solution can be arrived by routine optimization of these variables (volume ratio/percentages and solubility). See MPEP §2144.05 II A.
Thus, the instant claim is unpatentable over Bai .
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN J FIGUEROA whose telephone number is (571)272-8916. The examiner can normally be reached on 8:30 am -6:00 pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, JOSEPH DEL SOLE, can be reached on 571-272-1130. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JOHN J FIGUEROA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1763
September 30, 2026
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