DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-10 are pending and under consideration.
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 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 1-10 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.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the activator" in line 3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Further, on page 2, lines 10-14, the claim recites that the same device is used for each stage of the pH adjusting steps. However, the same section as well as the remainder of the claim, refer to a first pH adjustment device and a second pH adjustment device. As such, it is unclear whether there are one or two pH adjustment devices. That is, it is unclear whether the term “same device” means the same physical device or merely an identical type of device.
On page 4, line 15, claim 1 recites that the raffinate returns to the water used in the acid recovery chamber of step 2. However, step 2 recites several acid recovery chambers, and it is therefore unclear which acid recovery chamber is being referred to in this step.
Claims 2-10 depend from claim 1 and are indefinite for the same reasons.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 1 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:
CN102628101 (“Kong”, machine translation used for citations) teaches a method of extracting vanadium from vanadium ore (see e.g. paragraph [0002]). The method includes acid leaching of vanadium from the ore (see e.g. paragraph [0012]). An oxidant, which can be a hydroxime, is then added to the acidic leach solution (see e.g. paragraphs [0014] and [0018]-[0019]). An organic phase including sulfonated kerosene is used to extract the vanadium to generate a loaded organic phase and a raffinate (see e.g. paragraph [0015]). The extraction is done at 60 °C for 1-6 times for 5-60 minutes, each of which is within the claimed ranges (see e.g. paragraphs [0014]-[0015]). The raffinate is returned to the slurry process (see e.g. paragraph [0016]). A back extraction, which would presumably use a stripping regenerant, is also performed (see e.g. paragraph [0026]).
Wang, et al. "A zero-liquid-discharge scheme for vanadium extraction process by electrodialysis-based technology." Journal of hazardous materials 300 (2015): 322-328 (“Wang”) teaches a method of extracting vanadium from ore wherein an electrodialysis system is used (see e.g. page 323 (first column, first full paragraph, starting “In this study…”). The electrodialysis unit of Wang utilizes multiple cell pairs of anion exchange membranes (AEMs) and cation exchange membranes (CEMs) (see e.g. page 323, second column, first full paragraph, starting “The membrane stack…”). However, Wang teaches that the electrodialysis is performed on the extraction effluent, which already has the vanadium removed, as opposed to the instant application that performs the electrodialysis on the vanadium leachate directly (see e.g. paragraph bridging pages 323-324, starting “In this work…”).
There is no teaching or suggestion in Wang that the electrodialysis pH adjustment can be performed on the vanadium leachate rather than the resulting effluent after removal of the vanadium. Further, as Kong teaches that the described method results in close to 99% extraction of vanadium, one of ordinary skill in the art would not modify the method of Kong to treat the vanadium leachate by electrodialysis prior to the oxidation and extraction steps.
Conclusion
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/E.S.S./Examiner, Art Unit 1736
/ANTHONY J ZIMMER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1736
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