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 .
Examiner Note
It is noted that Claims 3 and 4 are properly-formed multiple dependent claims. Per MPEP 608.01(n)(I)(F), such claims are examined as individual claims, with reference to the specific dependence in each embodiment. In the instant case, Claim 3 will be examined twice – once with respect to Claim 3 depending on Claim 1, referred to as Claim 3/1, and once with respect to Claim 3 depending on Claim 2, referred to as Claim 3/2. Furthermore, with regard to Claim 4, the claim will be similarly examined using the notation 4/1 and 4/2.
Claim Objections
Claims 5-16 are objected to under 37 CFR 1.75(c) as being in improper form because a multiple dependent claim cannot depend from any other multiple dependent claim. See MPEP § 608.01(n). Accordingly, these claims have not been further treated on the merits.
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 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as anticipated by CN101671236A, hereinafter ‘Wang’.
Regarding Claim 1, Wang discloses a process for purifying an HX stream containing a phenolic residue ([0019]: phenol is mixed with water, hydrogen peroxide, and hydrobromic acid, and stirred to form tribromophenol, thereby removing phenol from the solution), comprising
treating a HX stream containing a phenolic residue by oxidative halogenation to halogenate the phenolic residue, producing a halogenated phenolic residue and a halogenated solution ([0019]: phenol is mixed with water, hydrogen peroxide, and hydrobromic acid, and stirred to form tribromophenol, thereby removing phenol from the solution);
cooling the halogenated solution; and filtering the halogenated phenolic residue from the halogenated solution to produce a partially purified HX stream ([0020]: the resulting solution is cooled and filtered);
wherein the HX stream comprises an HCl stream, an HBr stream, an HI stream, or combinations thereof ([0019]: the stream comprises hydrobromic acid, HBr).
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.
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 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CN101671236A, hereinafter ‘Wang’, in view of US2911363A, hereinafter ‘Kissling’.
Regarding Claim 2, while Wang discloses a process for treating a stream comprising a phenol to produce a partially purified stream containing hydrobromic acid as discussed above, Wang does not disclose passing the partially purified HX stream across an adsorbent bed, producing a purified HX stream.
Kissling discloses a process for removal of phenols from aqueous acidic media by anion exchange resins (Col 1, lines 15-17). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized Kissling as analogous to the claimed invention, as both references are drawn to the same field of endeavor, purifying an acidic stream containing phenolic compounds - a reference is analogous art to the claimed invention if the reference is from the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention, In re Bigio, 381 F.3d at 1325, 72 USPQ2d at 1212.
Kissling discloses one aqueous acid media which is treated in accordance with the invention is hydrochloric acid resulting from chlorination of phenol such as in the preparation of dichlorophenol. Even after physical purification of this acid, it contains up to about 500 parts per million phenol by weight. When passed through a bed of anion exchange resin, an acid product containing less than 10 parts per million phenol by weight is provided, and under optimum conditions a product containing substantially no phenol can be obtained (Col 2, lines 42-51). In an embodiment, Kissling discloses treating hydrochloric acid having 505 parts per million phenol, and after repeated treatments by an anion resin bed, the final acid stream had a phenol content of 1 ppm (Example 1).
Accordingly, one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have found it obvious to subject the acidic tribromophenol stream resulting from the process of Wang to treatment in an anion resin bed as taught by Kissling. Such a treatment would further improve the purity of the tribromophenol beyond that achieved by the process of Wang alone (Wang discloses in Example 1 producing a tribromophenol stream of 99.2 % purity, implying 0.8%, or 8000 ppm, of impurity).
Claim Objections/Potentially Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-4 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The prior art does not disclose or reasonably suggest the limitations of Claims 3-4. While Wang discloses the oxidation of phenol in the way required by Claim 1, it does not disclose or reasonably suggest that phenol is present in the reaction stream in the amounts required by Claims 3-4. Wang discloses 100 mL (g) of water, 18.8 g (0.2 mol) of phenol, and 54.4 g of 30% (0.48 mol) hydrogen peroxide were added to a reactor and 123.5 g of 40% hydrobromic acid (0.61 mol) was added dropwise – considering all these reagents as the HX stream required by Claim 1, the phenolic residue is present in an amount of about 6 wt%, which is above that required by Claims 3-4. There further exists no motivation to modify the loading of phenol to satisfy the instant claims.
Conclusion
The following prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: HU200581, which discloses the reaction of vanillin (containing a phenolic residue), HBr, and hydrogen peroxide to produce 5-bromovanillin. See examples.
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/L.E.L./Examiner, Art Unit 1736
/ANTHONY J ZIMMER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1736
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