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 as a 35 U.S.C. §371 national stage entry of
PCT/EP2022/076833 filed March 22, 2022, which in turn claims priority to European Patent Office application EP 21164059.4 filed March 22, 2021, is hereby acknowledged.
Election/Restriction
Applicant’s election, with traverse, of Group I (claims 1-6) in the reply filed July 9, 2026, to the restriction requirement dated Feb. 4, 2026, is hereby acknowledged. The traversal is apparently based on that that the two sets of claims should be examined together because that are linked by the special technical feature of the synthesis gas of present independent claim 1 due to claim 7 as “specifically configured to perform the process recited in claim 1”. These arguments are unpersuasive for the following reasons.
First, claim 7, and claims 8-15 that depend therefrom, as currently amended, do not depend from independent claim 1. Therefore, the process of the system of claims 7-15 need not be the same, and need not contain the limitations/special features, of that recited in present independent claim 1.
More importantly, Applicant’s traversal based upon the two groups of claims (Group I and Group II) allegedly not lacking unity in accordance with 37 CFR 1.475(b) are not persuasive because this rule is drawn to the a priori analysis before considering the prior art. Although these groups of claims may not lack unity a priori, they do have lack of unity a posteriori upon application of prior art as shown previously in item 6 on page 4 of the requirement, and, infra, in item 6 of the present action as to the prior art discussed therein. The prior art previously cited in the requirement was the Kubic reference (US 2013/0281553 A1 to Kubic et al.), which discloses the special technical feature of the present claims that is a process for producing a synthesis gas in accordance with present independent claim 1. See MPEP §1850; see also, Chapter 10 of PCT International Search and Preliminary Examination (ISPE) Guidelines, particularly, paragraphs 10.06 and 10.21, which is available on the USPTO website.
Accordingly, the restriction requirement has been maintained. Claims 1-6 have been examined in the instant Office action, whereas claims 7-15 have been withdrawn from consideration as drawn to a nonelected invention but remain pending with the present application.
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)(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.
(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.
Claims 1 and claims 2-6 that depend therefrom, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §102(a)(1) and (a)(2) as anticipated by Sabic (EP 3,730,456 A1, assigned to Sabic Global Technologies et al., published Oct. 28, 2020) and which has an effective filing date of April 24, 2019. This reference had been cited by Applicant on page 2 of its Information Disclosure Statement filed Sept. 4, 2023.
Examiner notes that the specification defines “flue gas” as usually consisting of nitrogen derived from the combustion of air, carbon dioxide and water vapor, and “carbon capture” as “the capturing of carbon dioxide from a stream, typically flue gas” (see page 5 and pages 7-8 of the present specification).
Sabic discloses an ammonia synthesis plant that comprises a syngas generation section (process of forming syngas) operable to reform carbon-containing feed to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide (syngas products), wherein a stream of nitrogen and a stream of hydrogen are reacted in an ammonium synthesis reactor, wherein the hydrogen stream can be obtained from a steam cracker, refinery sources, and/or from water electrolysis, and wherein nitrogen of appropriate purity can be obtained from an air separation unit and is subsequently added to the hydrogen stream prior to a compression step (abstract; [0051]; [0052]; [0073] to [0077]).
Sabic further discloses that the nitrogen present for the ammonia synthesis reaction may be purified in the syngas generation section (e.g., derived from process air) or can be added to the purified hydrogen stream, wherein very low levels of oxygen-containing compounds, such as carbon dioxide can be tolerated in the synthesis gas (hydrogen and nitrogen mixture), wherein additional oxygen compound removal is required, to prevent build-up of non-reactive gases, and increase the overall efficiency of the process, and wherein the carbon dioxide present is removed via a hydrogen/nitrogen purification system or by carbon capturing process using a carbon stripper or a compressor to provide a carbon dioxide-reduced combined nitrogen/hydrogen stream ([0065 to [0067]; [0070] to [0072]; [0077]; [0078]).
In Example1 and Table 2, Sabic discloses data from this example of its ammonium synthesis process, particularly, the amount of flue gas and carbon dioxide emissions ([0101] to [0104]). Even though, these amounts are low in comparison to those in Comparative Example 1, these values in Table 2 are evidence that the combined hydrogen/nitrogen syngas stream contained flue gas and carbon dioxide (which is subsequently removed by compression or capturing) and that at least some of the carbon dioxide must have been present in the flue gas, in accordance with Applicant’s definitions discussed, supra.
Thus, the instant claims are anticipated by Sabic .
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
July 24, 2026
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