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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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) 40 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Sridhar (US 4,210,426) or Smidt (WO 2017/158315).
The instant claim is drawn to an aliphatic alcohol, aliphatic amine, aliphatic acid, or an acrolein, obtained by a process according to claim 37 of the present invention. This is a product-by-process claim. However, of the product in a product-by-process claim is the same as or obvious from a product of the prior art, the claim is unpatentable even though the prior product was made by a different process.
To that end, Sridhar discloses n-butanol and i-butanol, both compounds being aliphatic alcohols (ex.2). Smidt discloses ethylpropyl acrolein and propylbutyl acrolein (ex. 5-8). The instant claim is anticipated by the compounds disclosed by Sridhar or Smidt.
Allowable Subject Matter
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: claims 21-39 are drawn to a process for separating heavy by-products and catalyst ligand from a vapor stream comprising an aldehyde, wherein a vapor stream comprising aldehyde, catalyst ligand, and heavy by-products are passed into a fractionator
The closest prior art of record, U.S. 4,792,636 to Hensman et al. teach a process for recovering aldehydes that comprises passing a vaporous stream comprising an aldehyde, ligand, and aldehyde condensation products to a fractionation zone.
Hensman et al. teach the recovery of a product stream containing aldehydes from the fractionation zone, and a liquid bottom stream containing the ligand and condensation products, and then recycling at least a part of the liquid bottom stream back to the hydroformylation zone.
The reference does not teach or suggest an additional step of passing the liquid bottom stream to a separation system, e.g., a distillation column, wherein the temperature at the bottom of the distillation column is greater than the temperature at the bottom of the fractionator, in order to remove any extra aldehydes from the liquid bottoms stream, as required in the present invention.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SIKARL A WITHERSPOON whose telephone number is (571)272-0649. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am-9pm IFP.
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/SIKARL A WITHERSPOON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1692