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 group IB in the reply filed on 04/28/2026 is acknowledged.
The examiner notes that the applicant mistakenly indicates claim 10 being withdrawn (which is elected) and claim 11 being original which is withdrawn.
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 and 6-10 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
As to claim 1, claim recites “the drilled hollow-core light guiding device tightly and coaxially coating”
However, it is not clear what types of coating is considered as tightly coated and what is not.
The examiner has an opinion of every coating is ideally tight coating unless it has unintentional flaws.
Therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
For the examination purposes, examiner will interpret it as the device coaxially coating.
Dependent claims 6-10 are also rejected since they inherit the indefiniteness of the claims from which they depend.
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 claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102 of this title, 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 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (Detection of Dissolved Acetylene in Power Transformer oil based on photonic crystal fiber, IEEE sensors Journal vol. 20, No. 18, September 15,2020 abstract filed in IDS) in view of Cai et al. (US 20170108641 A1, hereinafter Cai).
As to claim 1, Wang teaches a detection component for dissolved gases in liquid-phase medium (title), comprising a liquid-gas separation membrane (“The dissolved gases are separated from transformer oil by the help of polymeric membranes which oil molecules cannot pass through, page 10983, right col. first paragraph and polymeric membranes in Fig. 4) and a drilled hollow-core light guiding device (HC-PCF, hollow core photonic crystal fiber) wherein:
the drilled hollow-core light guiding device tightly and coaxially coating with the liquid-gas separation membrane (Fig. 4) to realize simultaneous dissolved gases separation and detection (the examiner considers the underlined limitation is an intent of use for the separation membrane, since the existence of membrane itself satisfies the underlined limitation);
the liquid-gas separation membrane filtering the dissolved gases in the liquid-phase medium into the drilled hollow-core light guiding device (while Wang is not explicitly disclosing gas being introduced to the light guiding device, for the gas measurement it is inherently imposed procedure, i.e., the gas separated by the Fig.4, to be measured by the Fig. 5, the has should be feed into the HC-PCF);
the drilled hollow-core light guiding device transmitting a laser (TSL 710) and a gas response signal (shown in Fig.8), which realizes simultaneous dissolved gases separation and detection (10982 right col. first and second paragraph).
However, Wang does not explicitly disclose an in-situ detection component and dissolved gases directly into the drilled hollow core light guiding device.
While Wang is not directly indicating the component being used in-situ detection, still Wang is imposing that the apparatus is designed to be used in-situ situation by stating former prior art’s component being lacked for the in-situ detection (“However, the structure of this
gas cell is complicated, and the stability is poor, which requires
optic calibration before test, thus it is not suitable for in-situ
monitoring.
For the purpose of further increasing the optical path length
and simplifying operation, researchers began turning attention
to hollow core photonic crystal fibers (HC-PCF) for its unique
structure characteristics.” Page 10982 left col., the end of second paragraph and start of third paragraph)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to recognize the component of Wang to use for in-situ detection for the benefit including instant real time data directly at the site of interest, optimizing the measurement time, repetitive cost and accuracy of measurement each time with secured consistency of each measurement with environment preserved sample situation.
Still lacking the limitation of filtering dissolved gases directly into the drilled hollow core light guiding device
Cai teaches dissolved gases directly into the drilled hollow core light guiding device ([0014] and [0015]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to modify the component of Wang by having filtering dissolved gases directly into the drilled hollow core light guiding device for the benefit including contamination free introduce of the sample gas to the measurement system (hollow core light guiding device).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-10 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112, 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
As to claim 6, none of the prior art alone or in combination disclose or teach of the liquid-gas separation membrane is composed of a Teflon AF2400 membrane layer and a mesoporous silica/silane coupling agent layer along with other limitations in the claim.
As to the limitation of membrane is composed of a Teflon AF 2400 membrane layer is taught by Ma et al. (Gas Transport properties of Teflon AF2400/Ceramic Composite Hollow Fiber membranes in dissolved gas in oil extraction, industrial and engineering chemistry research, March 25, 2020, filed in IDS).
However, the liquid-gas separation membrane being composed of a Teflon AF2400 membrane layer and a mesoporous silica/silane coupling agent layer is not found in the same art of endeavor.
Claims 7-10 are indicated as allowable due to their dependencies only.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SUNGHEE Y GRAY whose telephone number is (571)270-3211. The examiner can normally be reached on M, W and R, 8:00 am-4:00 pm and F 8 :00 to 2:00 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kara Geisel can be reached on (571) 272-2416. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-270-4211.
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/SUNGHEE Y GRAY/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2886
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