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 .
Claim Interpretation
Claim 19 recites the following limitations in lines 3-4:
“separating with a dewatering screw”;
“distilling the liquid in a distillation tower;”.
While there is not explicit antecedent basis for “the liquid” in line 3, it is clear that “the liquid” refers to liquid exiting the dewatering screw, and the limitation is interpreted accordingly.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 14, and 20 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In line 10 of claim 1, the phrase “from the from the” should be edited to read, “from the”.
In line 5 of claim 14, the phrase “of the of the” should be edited to read, “of the”.
In line 3 of claim 20, “Carbon Dioxide” should be un-capitalized.
In lines 1-2 of claim 20, “is includes” should be edited to read, “includes”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 1 and 14 each recite limitations directed to “a secondary burning chamber”, but neither claim recites a “primary burning chamber”. It is unclear whether the claims require the emissions to have already undergone combustion in a burning chamber, as emissions can be produced in both combustive and non-combustive industrial processes.
In lines 12-15 of claim 1, the following limitations appear to contradict each other: “separating the water-soluble contents and particulates from the water in the vat tank, wherein the particulates are comprised of ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, carbon and ash; and
distilling the water with water-soluble contents from the vat tank.”
If, in the first above-cited step, water-soluble contents are separated from the water in the vat tank, it would not be possible to distil the water with water-soluble contents from the vat tank in a subsequent step. See Trs. of Columbia Univ. v. Symantec Corp., 117 USPQ2d 1659, 1665 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (stating that an internally contradictive/inconsistent claim is indefinite and thus properly rejected as such under 35 U.S.C. 112(b)/2nd par.). Notwithstanding the foregoing, any combination of separation of particulates and distillation of the resulting liquid phase will be interpreted to read on the claim, as individual claims are given their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the specification. See MPEP § 2111.
Claim 2 recites the limitation “where EPA approved scientific methods and other approved and appropriate test methods are used to determine the molecular composition of emissions”. It is unclear which methods fall under the recited limitation, and a person having ordinary skill in the art would have no way of knowing whether a particular method infringes on the claim. Additionally, it is unclear whether both “EPA approved scientific methods” and “other approved and appropriate test methods” are required. Furthermore, “other approved… test methods” suggests that a given method is approved by some governing body, but it is unclear which governing body and which tests fall under the purview of this limitation. For purposes of examination, any method of determining the molecular composition of emissions will be considered to read on the recited limitation. In claim 15, “EPA approved or other appropriate and acceptable scientific methods” does not suffer from the same indefiniteness as the phrase, “EPA approved scientific methods and other approved and appropriate test methods” in claim 2, as a person having ordinary skill in the art would be apprised of which ‘appropriate and acceptable scientific methods’ could be used to determine the compounds in the emissions.
Claim 10 recites the limitation "the fractionalization step" in line 2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For purposes of examination, “the fractionalization step” will be interpreted to mean “a fractionalization step”.
Claim 20 recites the limitations “the ferrous metals”, “the non-ferrous metals”, “the plastics”, “the carbon”, and “the ash” in lines 4-7. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim. For purposes of examination, these limitations will be interpreted to mean “ferrous metals”, “non-ferrous metals”, “plastics”, “carbon”, and “ash”, respectively.
Claims 2-13 and 15-20 are indefinite due to their dependence on the indefinite claims 1 and 14, respectively, and because they do not cure the indefiniteness introduced by “a secondary burning chamber” as it appears in either claim.
Claims 2-13 are additionally indefinite due to their dependence on the indefinite claim 1 and because they do not cure the indefiniteness introduced by the contradictory limitations discussed above as they appear in the claim.
Claims 11-13 are additionally indefinite due to their dependence on the indefinite claim 10 and because they do not cure the indefiniteness of “the fractionalization step” as it appears therein.
Claims 3 and 6-9 are additionally indefinite due to their dependence on the indefinite claim 2 and because they do not cure the indefiniteness of “EPA approved scientific methods and other approved and appropriate test methods” as it appears therein.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: Clarke (U.S. 2011/0311423 A1), Wang (CN 112495135 A, 2021) (see the attached machine translation), Shim (KR 2019-0122391 A) (the attached machine translation is referenced below), Berger (DE 19940371 A1, 2001) (the attached machine translation is referenced below), and Prabhu (WO 2012/161711 A1) are considered to be the closest prior art to the instant claims.
Regarding claims 1 and 14, Clarke teaches an industrial air pollution removal method (Clarke, Fig. 1, [0062]-[0070]) comprising:
receiving emissions from an emission producing plant (Clarke, Fig. 1, [0063], off-gas);
combusting the emissions in a secondary burning chamber (Clarke, Fig. 1, VTT, [0064]);
sending the combusted emissions to a vat tank containing water (Clarke, Fig. 1, water scrubber, [0064]-[0065]); and
separating particulates from the water in the vat tank (Clarke, [0023]), wherein the particulates are comprised of ash (Clarke, [0029]).
Clarke does not teach freezing the water insoluble contents of the combusted emissions which are not captured in the water in the vat tank or separating the water insoluble contents from the frozen emissions from the vat tank. However, Berger teaches that carbon dioxide can be captured from combustion gases in solid form by “freezing” (Berger, [0025]).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have frozen the carbon dioxide produced in Clarke’s burning chamber (Clarke, Fig. 1), as Berger teaches that doing so would produce a useful carbon dioxide product (Berger, [0007]).
It would have been further obvious to separate frozen the carbon dioxide via sublimation because this is a component of Berger’s method which leads to a useful carbon dioxide product (Berger, [0025]).
Clarke does not teach determining a molecular composition of the emissions from the emission producing plant. However, Shim teaches that detecting the volatile organic compound concentration of an off-gas can be used to adjust the flow rate to the thermal treatment device (Shim, [0010]), which is analogous to Clarke’s VTT (Clarke, Fig. 1, [0064]). By doing so, Shim teaches that a wide variation of VOC concentration can be safely accommodated (Shim, [0036]-[0037]). This finding would also be applicable to addressing problems relevant to Clarke’s method (Clarke, [0003], “A problem with waste treatment, in particular domestic waste, is that no two waste loads are identical, due to the number of variables that exist in its composition, including weight, volume and water content.”). However, Shim falls short of detecting a molecular composition of emissions and merely detects the overall concentration of VOCs (Shim, [0036]-[0037]).
Clark does not teach that the particulates comprise, in addition to ash (Clark, [0029]), ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, and carbon. Where Clarke does mention the presence of metals, they are taught to be soluble (Clarke, [0074], “Gases then pass to the wet scrubber, operating at about 70°C, which removes inorganic acids, volatile metals and particulates, the latter with such efficiency that a separate dry filtration is not needed.” As particulates are listed separately from ‘volatile metals’, the metals are implied to be soluble.). None of the cited prior art references teach or suggest that the particulate would contain all of ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, carbon and ash. For at least this reason, claim 1 contains allowable subject matter.
Clarke does not teach separating the water-soluble contents from the water in the vat tank or distilling the water from the vat tank. Rather, Clarke teaches disposing the waste water into a sewer without removing water-soluble contents (Clarke, [0064]-[0065]). As none of the cited prior art references teach or suggest separating the water-soluble contents from the water in the vat tank, claims 1 and 14 both contain allowable subject matter.
Claims 2-13 and 15-20 contain allowable subject matter due to their dependence on claims 1 and 14, respectively, which both contain allowable subject matter.
Conclusion
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/ZACHARY JOHN BAUM/Examiner, Art Unit 1736
/ANTHONY J ZIMMER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1736