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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 35-54 in the reply filed on 10/31/25 is acknowledged.
Claim Objections
Claims 40-44 and 50-54 are objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate of claims 35-39 and 45-49 respectively. When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 608.01(m).
The only difference in the claim sets is the addition of “and/or other organic compounds” in the objected claims. The “and/or” makes this element optional, and therefore not patentably distinguishable. Also, this element pertains to the wastewater being treated (which inherently contains many organic compounds,) not the process itself, and therefore not a patentable element.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102/103
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.
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.
Claim(s) 35-54 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a1) as anticipated by or, in the alternative, under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Dickson et al (US 2022/0177341).
Claims 35-37, 40-42, 45-47 and 50-52: Dickson teaches in figure 3 (part of fig.3, annotated, is copied herein) and [0138]-0145] the claimed process. Influent wastewater at 1 is pretreated with ozofractionation at 2-4, and then the ozofractionated water is treated with adsorbent media at 5. Treated water is effused at 5.
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The influent has PFAs and PFA precursors as claimed, and the ozofractionation converts precursors to PFAs. See [0140.] Oxidizing agent is ozone.
The enhancement of the adsorptive media implicitly or inherently follows because the conversion of precursors of PFAs to PFAs. Or, at the least it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill that that would be the result of the process.
Claims 38, 43, 48, 53: ozone with UV – see [0074.]
Claim 39, 44, 49, 54: adsorptive media is GAC, ion exchange, etc. [0145.]
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KRISHNAN S MENON whose telephone number is (571)272-1143. The examiner can normally be reached Flexible, but generally Monday-Friday: 8:00AM-4:30PM.
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/KRISHNAN S MENON/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1777