DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 were subject to restriction requirement mailed on 04/23/2026.
Applicant filed a response, and elected Group I, claims 1-6, and withdrew claims 7-20, without traverse on 06/11/2026.
Claims 1-20 are pending, and claims 7-20 are withdrawn.
Claims 1-6 are rejected.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I, claims 1-6, in the reply filed on 06/11/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 7-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected Group, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 06/11/2026.
Claim Objections
Claims 1-6 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1, line 5, it is suggested to amend “at least one” to “the at least one” to ensure proper antecedent basis and clarity.
Claim 1, line 6, it is suggested to amend “a biosurfactant” to “the at least one biosurfactant” to be consistent with the phrase “at least one biosurfactant” recited in claim 1, line 5.
Each line 1 of claims 2-6, it is suggested to amend “A method” to “The method” to ensure proper antecedent basis and clarity.
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 1-6 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.
A broad range or limitation together with a narrow range or limitation that falls within the broad range or limitation (in the same claim) may be considered indefinite if the resulting claim does not clearly set forth the metes and bounds of the patent protection desired. See MPEP § 2173.05(c). In the present instance, claim 1 recites the broad recitation “lignin”, and the claim also recites “in particular technical lignin”, which is the narrower statement of the range/limitation. The claim(s) are considered indefinite because there is a question or doubt as to whether the feature introduced by such narrower language is (a) merely exemplary of the remainder of the claim, and therefore not required, or (b) a required feature of the claims.
Regarding dependent claims 2-6, these claims does not remedy the deficiencies of parent claim 1 noted above, and are rejected for the same rationale.
Claim 6, line 2, recites a phrase “20%”. However, it is unclear what the phrase refers to,
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Clough, US 5,344,625 (Clough) in view of Gos et al., US 10,829,833 B2 (Gos) (both provided in IDS received on 01/08/2024).
Regarding claims 1-4, Clough discloses a process for recovering at least one first metal selected from the group consisting of gold, silver and the platinum group metals (i.e., platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium and osmium) from an ore, comprising contacting said ore with at least one added plant derived aromatic component (Clough, claim 1);
the ore or ores are preferably subjected to particle size reduction, e.g., by crushing, grinding, milling and the like, prior to contacting to render the ore or ores more easily and/or effectively processed in the present contacting step (Clough, column 14, 2nd paragraph);
the plant derived aromatic component is lignin (Clough, claim 2);
the contacting step provides for at least partially liberating the metal or metals to be recovered from the ore (Clough, column 3, bottom paragraph);
the solid ore/material remaining after the contacting step may be subjected to any suitable metal recovery processing steps for the recovery of the metal, e.g., silver, gold, the platinum group metals and the like (Clough, column 14, lines 46-50).
However, Clough does not explicitly disclose further comprising and at least one isolated strain of bacteria capable of producing at least one biosurfactant, and/or at least one biosurfactant produced from at least one isolated strain of bacteria capable of producing a biosurfactant; or at least a portion of the metals or metal containing material separate and settle out from the rest of the crushed or milled ore material; and recovering the separated and settled metals or metal containing material.
With respect to the difference, Gos teaches a process of enriching a heavy metal (Gos, Abstract). Gos specifically teaches incubating a suspension containing particulate comprising heavy metal and biomass comprising a bacterium, capable of binding the heavy metal, separating the biomass having bound heavy metal from the suspension (Gos, abstract); wherein said bacterium is e.g. Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus pumilus (Gos, column 3, lines 5-10); the particulate material is a mineral ore (Gos, column 3, lines 50-55); the biomass having bound heavy metal is separated by methods such as sedimentation (Gos, column 13, lines 35-40).
As Gos expressly teaches, the bacterial strains can be used in the process of enriching heavy metal such as gold and silver (Gos, column 8, lines 30-40).
Gos is analogous art as Gos is drawn to a process of enriching a heavy metal.
In light of the motivation of using a bacterial strain in the process of metal recovery, as taught by Gos, it therefore would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use include biomass comprising a bacterium, such as Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus pumilus, along with the lignin in Clough, when contacting with ore, and separate the biomass having bound heavy metal by methods such as sedimentation, in order to enrich a heavy metal, such as gold and silver, and thereby arrive at the claimed invention.
Claims 5-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Clough in view of Gos as applied to claim 1above, and further in view of Beisl et al., Lignin from micro- to nanosize: Production Methods, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2017 (Beisl) (provided in IDS received on 01/08/2024).
Regarding claims 5-6, as applied to claim 1, Clough in view of Gos does not explicitly disclose wherein the lignin comprises at least one of lignin nanoparticles and lignin microparticles or wherein the lignin includes lignin particles, at least 20% of the lignin particles being lignin nanoparticles.
With respect to the difference, Beisl teaches lignin nanoparticles (Beisl, Abstract).
As Beisl expressly teaches, nanostructured materials, offer unique properties due to their increasing surface area, while their important chemical and physical interaction are governed by surface properties (Beisl, page 2, 2nd paragraph).
Beisl is analogous art as Beisl is drawn to lignin nanoparticles.
In light of the motivation of using lignin that is of nanostructured, i.e., lignin nanoparticles, as taught by Beisl, it therefore would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use lignin nanoparticles as the lignin in Clough in view of Gos, in order to achieve higher surface area, which are important for their chemical and physical interaction with ore particles, and thereby arrive at the claimed inventions.
Conclusion
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/KELING ZHANG/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1732
Prosecution Insights