DETAILED ACTION
The following Office action concerns Patent Application Number 18/333,876. Claims 1-21 are pending in the application.
The applicant’s amendment filed March 30, 2026 has been entered. The restriction requirement is withdrawn.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-7, 11-14, 18-21 are allowable over the closest prior art of Kinoshita et al (US 2004/0023118) in view of Johnson et al (US 2012/0132073). The references do not teach or suggest heat treating a biomass feedstock to obtain biochar particles and activating the biochar to obtain activated carbon.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. § 112 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
(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.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) because the terms “using a water steam” and “using an activation agent” are indefinite regarding the term “using.” The claim does not set forth any step involved in the method of using, therefore, it is unclear what method the applicant is intending to encompass. A claim is indefinite where it merely recites a use without any active, positive steps delimiting how this use is actually practiced. MPEP § 2173.05(q).
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 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, 8-10, 16, 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Kinoshita et al (US 2004/0023118) in view of Johnson et al (US 2012/0132073).
Kinoshita et al teaches a method of making carbonaceous particles from activated carbon (par. 34-35). The activated carbon is porous (par. 36). The activated carbon is coated with a carbon precursor (par. 35). The carbon precursor coats the surface which implicitly includes the pore surfaces of the activated carbon (par. 35). The activated carbon coated with carbon precursor is heat treated to form a carbonaceous coating on the activated carbon (par. 35). The carbon precursor includes phenol resin (par. 35).
Kinoshita et al does not teach the pore volume fraction of the activated carbon.
However, Johnson et al teaches activated carbon having a pore volume of 15-70 % (par. 14).
Kinoshita et al teaches porous activated carbon, but does not teach the pore volume fraction. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by design need to combine the pore volume of Johnson et al with the method of Kinoshita et al in order to obtain activated carbon having a known pore volume fraction.
Regarding claim 17, amorphous carbon (carbonaceous) has a known density of about 2 g/cm3. At a pore volume fraction of 50 %, the resulting density of the porous carbonaceous material would be about 1 g/cm3, which is within the claimed range.
Examiner’s Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to William Young whose telephone number is (571) 270-5078. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM to 5 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Angela Brown-Pettigrew, can be reached at 571-272-2817. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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