CARBON DIOXIDE RECOVERY SYSTEM

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 . Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114 A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 21 August 2026 has been entered. Response to Arguments Applicant's arguments filed 21 August 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant has argued that the combination of refences applied by the Office in the final rejection mailed 22 May 2026 fail to teach or suggest that the porous carbon working electrode (CO2 adsorbent) was “configured such that an oxygen reduction reaction in which active oxygen 02- is generated from 02 contained in the CO2 containing gas and a carbonate ion generation reaction in which CO2 contained in the CO2 containing gas is oxidized by the active oxygen 02- to generate carbonate ions C032- proceed in the working electrode.” In response, the Office notes that the recited limitation is in the form of a functional limitation, while the claim as a whole is directed to an apparatus. Per MPEP § 2112.01.I. and § 2114, when Applicant recites functional limitations in apparatus claims, the Office must evaluate whether the structure of the prior art is inherently capable of performing the functional limitation. The evaluation requires determination of what structure is taught by the specification as performing the functional limitation. Here, the specification does not recite any particular special structure beyond the use of the porous carbon working electrode as performing the claimed function. The prior art teaches substantially identical structure, with Yabe et al teaching the working electrode comprising porous active carbon and Inagaki et al teaching the specifically claimed (in dependent claims) MOF-derived porous carbon material as a CO2 adsorbent, such that one of ordinary skill in the art would have expected the prior art to inherently be capable of performing in the claimed manner. Applicant’s claim amendment and arguments are not found persuasive because they do not structurally distinguish the claimed invention from the structure of the prior art. 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. Claims 1, 3-7, and 9-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yabe et al (JP 2017-202941) in view of Inagaki et al (“Templated mesoporous carbons: Synthesis and applications”). Yabe et al teach (see English abstract, fig. 1 (reproduced below), and the middle of page 4 and bottom of page 6 of machine translation) a carbon dioxide recovery system for separating CO2 from a CO2-containing gas by an electrochemical reaction, the system comprising an PNG media_image1.png 256 522 media_image1.png Greyscale electrochemical cell (10) including a working electrode (combination of substrate 1 and porous body 4), a counter electrode (2), and an electrolytic solution (3), wherein the porous body of the working electrode was a CO2 adsorbent. The solution (3) was sandwiched between the working electrode (1+4) and the counter electrode (2). The CO2 adsorbent (4) was configured to adsorb CO2 in response to a voltage and current (i.e. “electrons”) being applied between the working electrode and the counter electrode. Yabe et al further teach (see second half of page 7 of machine translation) that the porous body (4) of the working electrode included a plurality of pores and that carbon-based electrodes using activated carbon were suitable. Yabe et al fails to teach the pore diameter of the plurality of pores being larger than an ion diameter of the electrolytic solution. Inagaki et al teach (see abstract, sections 2.1.1 and 2.3.2 and the last paragraph of section 5.4) that mesoporous templated carbon may be suitable for CO2 adsorption. The pore size distribution of the mesoporous templated carbon (see figs. 3(b), 4, 6(b), 14, 18, 24(b)) fell within the claimed range of 2 to 50 nm, with most pores of the mesoporous carbon being less than 20 nm. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have substituted the mesoporous templated carbon having pore diameters within the claimed range taught by Inagaki et al for the activated carbon of the CO2 adsorbent of Yabe et al because Inagaki et al teach that the mesoporous templated carbon having mesopores within the claimed pore diameter range were effective as a CO2 adsorbent. With respect to the claim limitation “the CO2 adsorbent is configured such that an oxygen reduction reaction in which active oxygen 02- is generated from 02 contained in the CO2 containing gas and a carbonate ion generation reaction in which CO2 contained in the CO2 containing gas is oxidized by the active oxygen 02- to generate carbonate ions C032- proceed in the working electrode”, such limitation is recited as a functional limitation. Per MPEP § 2114 and § 2112.01.I., where Applicant recites a functional limitation in an apparatus claim, the Office must evaluate what structural features are required for performing the function and whether or not the prior art is inherently capable of performing the claimed function. Here, Applicant’s specification does not tie the function of performing the oxygen reduction reaction and carbonate ion generation reaction to any specific structure beyond reciting that it occurs at the porous carbon working electrode (“MOF-derived carbon material”, paragraph [0063] of the instant specification). Since Yabe et al teach using a porous active carbon working electrode, the claimed function is considered to be inherently present in the CO2 adsorbent of the prior art. Regarding claim 3, Inagaki et al teach (see sections 3.2-3.2.1) that the mesoporous templated carbon was formed as a porous carbon material derived from a metal-organic framework (MOF) as a precursor. Regarding claim 4, Inagaki et al teach (see section 3.2.1) forming the mesoporous templated carbon by thermally decomposing the MOF. Regarding claim 5, Inagaki et al teach (see section 3.2.1) using MOF-5 as the template. Regarding claim 6, see above regarding claim 3. Note that the carbon of Inagaki et al was an inorganic material. Regarding claim 7, Inagaki et al teach (see section 3.2.1) producing the porous carbon by firing (~1000°C) of the MOF. Regarding claims 9-11, Inagaki et al teach (see abstract, section 2.1.1 and the last paragraph of section 5.4) the mesoporous carbon was formable by templating a carbon material with MgO followed by subsequent removal of the MgO leaving behind only the carbon as a mesoporous body. Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yabe et al (JP 2017-202941) in view of Inagaki et al (“Templated mesoporous carbons: Synthesis and applications”) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Zhong et al (“The application of ZIF-67 and its derivatives: adsorption, separation, electrochemistry and catalysts”). Yabe et al as modified by Inagaki et al teach ensuring that the porous carbon material CO2 absorbent working electrode was mesoporous having pore diameters in the range of 2-20 nm as discussed above with respect to claim 1. Yabe et al and Inagaki et al fail to teach forming the porous inorganic material CO2 absorbent by using a metal organic framework of the Markush group set forth in claim 8. Zhong et al teach (see abstract, section 2.1.1) that ZIF-67 possessed excellent CO2 adsorption capacity and (see Table 2 and paragraph spanning pages 1891 and 1892) pore sizes in the mesopore range (0.5 nm-4.0 nm). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have combined the suggestions of Yabe et al and Inagaki et al with the teachings of Zhong et al to arrive at the invention of claim 8 by simple substitution of the mesoporous inorganic material (ZIF-67) of Zhong et al for the mesoporous carbon material of Inagaki et al. See MPEP 2141.I.B. Here, Zhong et al provide a reasonable expectation of success since use of the mesoporous ZIF-67 based material was contemplated for CO2 adsorption. Conclusion All claims are identical to or patentably indistinct from, or have unity of invention with claims in the application prior to the entry of the submission under 37 CFR 1.114 (that is, restriction (including a lack of unity of invention) would not be proper) and all claims could have been finally rejected on the grounds and art of record in the next Office action if they had been entered in the application prior to entry under 37 CFR 1.114. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL even though it is a first action after the filing of a request for continued examination and the submission under 37 CFR 1.114. See MPEP § 706.07(b). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a). A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HARRY D WILKINS III whose telephone number is (571)272-1251. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30am -6:00pm. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, James Lin can be reached at 571-272-8902. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /HARRY D WILKINS III/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1794