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 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, 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Boorse (US Pub.: 2011/0271664) and in view of Tang (CN 114904568) and in view of Yamashita (US Pat.: 12415178) and in view of Gilbert (US Pub.: 2016/0367941).
Boorse describes a catalyst that includes a first catalyst zone that incudes an SCR and a second catalyst zone that includes ammonia oxidation (abstract). Both of these are positioned on a substrate (Fig. 1, 12). The substrate can be a silicon carbide compound (ara36). The first catalyst (see Fig. 1, 18), which is an SCR (para. 27). The SCR can include a metal in the group VIIIB (para. 41).
The second catalyst is an ammonia oxidation catalyst, which can include an Rh metal (para. 48). The SCR may be deposited on the substrate as a coating (para. 27). The substrate is in the form of a wall flow substrate that has a plurality of parallel gas flow passages extending along a longitudinal axis of the substrate (para. 35). The substrate has an inlet end and an outlet end that defines that axial length, which includes the plurality of channels (para. 27). These can be considered the meet the plurality of cells extending from an inflow side end surface to an outflow side end surface.
In Figure 1, Boorse shows that the side marked 22 is an inlet end and the side marked 24 is an outlet end (para. 27 and Figure 1). It is shown that the SCR is coated at the inlet side towards to the outlet side (see Fig. 1).
The ammonia oxidation catalyst is placed as an undercoat layer on the substrate (para. 65). This catalyst is marked as 16, which is placed at an outlet side towards the inlet side (Fig. 1). The catalyst substrate has three zones 18, 20 and 16 (Fig. 1). Each zone is from 10-80% of the substrate (para. 31) or it can be 1/3 of the substrate (para. 31). From Fig. 1, it shows that both the inlet catalyst (SCR) and the outlet catalyst (AMOX) covers two zones of the substrate.
Therefore, this meets the feature that the inflow catalyst layer extends from an inflow side to the outflow side by a distance of more than 50% of the total length in the extending direction of the partition wall. It also meets the feature that the outflow catalyst region extends from the outflow side along the extending direction by a distance of more than 50% of the total length in the extending direction of the partition wall.
A partition of the porous walls of the substrate is then coated with the second catalyst (the AMOX) in addition to coating the substrate (para. 57).
This can be considered to meet the feature of Claim 1 describing the outflow side catalyst layer disposed on the surface of the partition wall and the surface of the partition wall is in a portion not overlapping with the inflow side catalyst region.
As to the SCR catalyst metal that includes a VIIIB metal being a Pd, Boorse does not specifically state that the VIIIB metal is Pd or that the total coat amount divided by the volume of substrate is from 138-150 g/L.
As to the use of Pd in the SCR catalyst, Tang teaches an SCR catalyst (title). The SCR catalyst can include a Pd metal combined with a molecular sieve (Claim 2). The Pd metal can alternatively be a transition metal that falls within the same VIIIB group (Claim 2).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to employ Pd in the SCR catalyst, as taught by Tang for use with the VIIIB metal in the SCR of Boorse because Pd is a known effective catalytic component for use in SCR catalysts.
Boorse does not describe the loading amount. This feature is taught by Yamashita.
As to the loading, Yamashita teaches an exhaust gas purification catalyst system that includes an ammonia oxidation catalyst and an SCR used in NOx reduction (abstract). The system includes an upstream SCR, followed by a downstream ammonia oxidation catalyst (Fig. 4) that can be adjacent (Fig. 4) or on-top of (Fig. 1) or other configurations (Fig. 2, 3).
As to the loading amount, Yamashita teaches that the catalysts are coated on a substrate (col. 4, lines 49-55) with a loading for the ammonia oxidation catalyst of 5-30 g/L (col. 6, lines 1-8). The SCR catalyst can have a loading of 50-130 g/L (col. 6, lines 35-45).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add the ammonia oxidation catalyst and the SCR at a load of 5-20 g/L of the AMOX and 50-130 g/L for the SCR, as taught by Yamashita for use with the system of Boorse because these loading amounts are known to be effective for use in these types of catalysts for pollution reduction.
As to the use of the SCR on separate substrates or overlapping on one substrate, Gilbert describes a zoned exhaust gas system (title) that includes an SCR and a ASC (ammonia slip catalyst) (see Fig. 2) that can alternatively include a SCR that is layered on the ammonia oxidation catalyst (Fig. 5).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the loading of the SCR and the AMOX used in separate substrates to a catalyst system that loads a SCR and AMOX on the same substrate and overlaps them, as shown by Gilbert for use with Boorse because Gilbert shows that these alternative structures are both known to be effective for use in pollution reduction of exhaust gases.
Conclusion
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/SHENG H DAVIS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1732 July 23, 2026
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