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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s amendment to claim 1 and the associated remarks on page 10, filed 14 April 2026, are persuasive to overcome the rejection grounds of Yabe et al in view of Ikoma et al. However, after a review of the prior art already of record, new rejection grounds addressing the new claim limitations are presented below.
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 electrochemical cell (10) including a working electrode (combination of substrate 1 and porous
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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.
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
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
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/HARRY D WILKINS III/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1794
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