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 .
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I, claims 1-7 in the reply filed on April 1, 2026 is acknowledged.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
Claims 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yueli et al (CN 110947386A machine translation).
Applicants’ claimed invention is directed to an ethanol synthesis catalyst for synthesizing ethanol from carbon dioxide, comprising: at least one carrier selected from the group consisting of ZrO2, A12O3, and TiO2;Fe and Cu supported on the carrier; and Na and/or K supported on the carrier.
Yueli teaches an ethanol synthesis catalyst comprising a titania (TiO2) carrier supporting Fe, Cu and K (via KOH), specifically for the hydrogenation of CO2 into lower alcohols. The primary difference is that Yueli’s specific embodiment(example 7) further includes cobalt, an element not explicitly recited in the present claims. See abstract and Examples
A person of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would find the present claim obvious because the transitional term “comprising” is open-ended, meaning the presence of cobalt in Yueli does not exclude it from the scope of the claim. Since Yueli discloses every required element-the TiO2 carrier, the Fe/Cu metal pair and the K promoter-the prior art catalyst effectively contains the claimed invention. Furthermore, it would be a matter of routine optimization for a POHSITA to vary or omit auxiliary metal like cobalt to tune selectivity, especially since the Fe-Cu-K system is already recognized in the art as the core functional unit for CO2 conversion.
Regarding claim 2, Yueli teaches the preparation of the catalyst using ferric nitrate and copper nitrate precursors which, through standard calcination steps described in the reference, are converted into their respective oxide forms on the titania carrier. See examples.
A person of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize that using metal nitrates followed by thermal treatment is a conventional method specifically intended to yield metal oxide as the stable active phases, and it would be obvious to POSITA that the core oxide species required by the claim are inherently present and functional in Yueli’s catalyst for CO2 hydrogenation.
Regarding claim 3, Yueli’s catalyst inherently meets the requirement of claim 3 because the CO2 hydrogenation process described is a reducing environment (using H2 at high pressure), which naturally reduces the metal oxides into their metallic and sub-oxides states. See examples. A person of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would understand that iron and copper oxides supported on titania will undergo in-situ reduction during the reaction to form Fe0, Fe3O4 (magnetite) and Cu0, which are well-known active phases for alcohol synthesis. Furthermore, the use of a titania carrier promotes the stability of these specific species.
Regarding claim 4, Yueli explicitly teaches the use of KOH as the promoter in the preparation of the catalyst (Example 7), which directly anticipates the potassium source recited in claim 4. A person of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize that that KOH is a standard alkaline promoter used to enhance the selectivity of lower alcohols during CO2 hydrogenation.
Regarding claim 5, Yueli Example 7 teaches a catalyst preparation using 7.57 g of ferric nitrate and 3.39 g of copper nitrate which corresponds to approximately 1.05 g of elemental Fe and 0.89 g of elemental Cu, totaling 1.94 g of active metals. When these metals are supported on a typical laboratory scale carrier mass (such as 10 g), the resulting combined mass of Fe and Cu is approximately 16.2%, which falls within the 5 to 35% by mass range recited in claim 5. A POSITA would found it obvious to employ these specific metal loadings to achieve the CO2 hydrogenation results disclosed by Yueli, as the optimization of metal to carrier weight ratios is a routine experimental procedure use to maximize catalytic surface area and reaction efficiency.
Regarding claim 6, Yueli’s Example 7 teaches the use of 7.57 of ferric nitrate and 3.39 g of copper nitrate, which results in a molar ratio of Fe/Cu of approximately 1.34. This value falls within the range of 0.1 to 2.5. Because Yueli specific catalyst formulation utilizes near the center of the claimed range, a POSITA would have found the selection of this molar ratio obvious to achieve CO2 hydrogenation. Furthermore, varying the molar ratio of active metals within such a broad range is considered routine optimization in the field of catalysis to tune product selectivity and conversion rate, providing a reasonable expectation of success.
Regarding claim 7, Yueli Example 7 teaches the addition of 0.617 g of KOH, which contains 0.43 of elemental potassium. When supported on a standard 10 g carrier along with the Fe and Cu metals, the potassium content represents approximately 3.5% by mass, which falls within the claimed range of 0.1 to 10% by mass. A person of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would have found it obvious to utilize this concentration of potassium, as alkaline promoters are known to be effective within the specific rage for improving the selectivity of lower alcohols, and Yueli’s choice represent a routine optimization of promoter loading to enhance catalytic performance.
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/JAFAR F PARSA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1692
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