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 and Claim Status
1. Applicant’s election without traverse of Invention I, Species C and claims 1-12, 14-17, and 21-24 in the reply filed on 01/16/26 is acknowledged.
2. However, claim 2, generic to all three identified species has been found allowable (see below). Therefore, the election of species requirement among species (paragraph 7 of the office action dated 11/19/25) has been withdrawn.
3. Claims 1-12, 14-17, and 21-24 are pending and examined herein.
Information Disclosure Statement
4. The information disclosure statement filed 01/26/24 fails to comply with 37 CFR 1.98(a)(2), which requires a legible copy of each cited foreign patent document; each non-patent literature publication or that portion which caused it to be listed; and all other information or that portion which caused it to be listed. It has been placed in the application file, but the information referred to therein has not been considered. No copies of any of the CN references have been provided. Rather, applicant has provided only a barely legible screenshot of a translation.
5. The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/26/24 has been considered by the examiner. However, the IDS cites an extreme volume of information (hundreds of documents). Many of these reference are not at all relevant to the claimed subject matter. Therefore, the cited US documents cited have been given only a cursory review. If Applicant is aware of any that are materially related to patentability in the instant application, a list of such specific references should be provided.
Claim Objections
6. Claim 16 objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate of claim 9. 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).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
7. 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.
8. Claims 3, 4, 5, 22, 23, and 24 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
9. Regarding claims 3 and 4, the recitation “wherein the control blade moves into/away from the reactor section” is unclear in view of the claim 1 recitation “wherein motion of the drive rod causes the control blade to move horizontally within the vessel.” Do claims 3 and 4 further limit the horizontal movement introduced in claim 1 or do the claims require that in addition to the horizontal movement, the control blade also move in another direction into/away from the reactor section? Claims 3 and 4 are further unclear because they lack correspondence with the specification (MPEP 2173.03). Based on at least Fig. 6, the control blade is always disposed in the reactor section. However, the horizontal movement of the control blade causes the control blade to extend into/retract from the reactor core of the reactor section. The examiner suggests amending claim 3 to recite “wherein responsive to the drive rod moving downward in the vessel, the control blade moves horizontally within the reactor section into a reactor core disposed in the reactor section.” Claim 4 could be amended in a similar manner.
10. Claims 23 and 24 are indefinite for the same reasons claims 3 and 4 are indefinite. They could be amended as suggested above.
11. Regarding claims 5 and 21, the recitation “inward” is a relative term that lacks a reference point by which one would be able determine the bounds of the limitation. Further, claim 22 lacks a reference point for the relative term oblique.” It is unclear to what structure the surface is inward from and to what structure the surface is obliquely arranged.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
12. In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
13. For applicant's benefit, the portions of the reference(s) relied upon in the below rejections have been cited to aid in the review of the rejections. While every attempt has been made to be thorough and consistent within the rejection, it is noted that prior art must be considered in its entirety, including disclosures that teach away from the claims. See MPEP 2141.02 VI.
14. 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.
15. Claims 1, 6, 7, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Applicant’s Admitted Prior art (“AAPA” at Figs. 4-5 and [0053-63] of the instant specification as show in US 2025/0174369) in view of Dickson, US 3,208,914.
16. Regarding claims 1 and 14, AAPA discloses a molten salt nuclear reactor comprising a vessel (480); a reactor section (440) disposed within the vessel, barrel (404) disposed between the reactor section and the vessel, the reactor section configured to receive a volume of fuel salt and heat the fuel salt through fission reactions ([0055]); and a heat exchange section (460) configured to receive a flow of the fuel salt from the reactor section after heating and to remove heat therefrom ([0058]); and further suggests a control blade assembly disposed within the vessel ([0058]: “one or more control rod structures and/or other structures that are operable to control reactivity of the core”). AAPA is silent as to the details of the control blade assembly. Dickson teaches a control blade assembly for a nuclear reactor (column 1, lines 11-13) disposed within a vessel (10+23+27; see Figs. 1 and 2), the control blade assembly comprising a control blade (47) joined by a coupling (93) to a drive rod (34), wherein motion of the drive rod causes the control blade to move horizontally within the vessel (Figs. 1, 2, 8, 9, 10 and column 6, lines 25-30, 52-73). One of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention/filing would have found it obvious to apply the control blade drive assembly of Dickson with the reactor of AAPA for the predictable purpose of “controlling the reactivity in the core” (AAPA at [0058])by displacing fuel from the core and replacing it with a neutron absorber to reduce the fission rate (see Dickson at Fig. 8 and column 6, lines 67-73).
17. Claims 6 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over AAPA in view of Dickson, in further view of Hellman, US 3,448,008.
18. Regarding claims 6 and 7, the combination of the control blade drive assembly of Dickson with the reactor of AAPA makes claim 1 obvious Dickson is silent as to the construction of the control blades. Hellman teaches a control blade comprising boron carbide enclosed in a stainless steel cladding (column 2, lines 45-57). One of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention/filing would have found it obvious to apply such materials to the control blade of Dickson in the reactor of AAPA because Dickson establishes that such materials are suitable for use for control elements in a nuclear reactor. It has been held to be within the general skill of a worker in the art to select known material on the basis of its suitability for the intended use as a matter of obvious design choice. In re Leshin, 125 USPQ 416.
19. Claims 8, 9, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over AAPA in view of Dickson, in further view of Trocki, US 3,395,781
20. Regarding claims 8, 9, and 16, the combination of the control blade drive assembly of Dickson with the reactor of AAPA makes claim 1 obvious. AAPA further discloses an integral molten salt reactor ([0054]) and a container arranged to surround a portion of the control blade (451 in [0058] and Fig. 5). Dickson also further teaches a container (63) arranged to surround a portion of the control blade (Fig. 1, Fig. 8). Neither AAPA nor Dickson teaches the control blade guide tubs welded to the vessel. Trocki teaches such an arrangement (column 4, lines 20-28). One of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention/filing would have found it obvious to apply the attachment mechanism taught by Trocki to the reactor of AAPA as modified by Dickson for the predictable purpose of providing structural support to the control blade guide tubes as well as to ensure structural integrity of the reactor vessel.
Allowable Subject Matter
21. Claims 2, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17, and 21 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
22. Claims 3, 4, 5, 22, 23, and 24 would be allowable if rewritten 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 and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
23. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: although the prior art contains a myriad of horizontally moveable control rod mechanisms, the particular structural details claimed are not present in the prior art devices nor is there a teaching, suggestion, or motivation to modify the prior art to arrive at the structure claimed.
Although many of the structural limitations of the independent claims may be found separately in the prior art, it would not have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to combine the separately taught limitations to arrive at the claimed invention without the hindsight of utilizing the present disclosure as a blueprint.
Interviews
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
Additional References
The attached Notice of Reference Cited (PTO-892) cites additional prior art made of record and not relied upon that is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHARON M DAVIS whose telephone number is (571)272-6882. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday, 7:00 - 5:00 pm ET.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jack Keith can be reached at 571-272-6878. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SHARON M DAVIS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3646