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.
Claim(s) 1-24 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kuo et al (2010 J. Chem. Technol. Biotechnol. 85: 1346-1352) in view of Wang et al (2008 Carbohydrate Polymers 72:178-184) and Gritsch et al (2023 published online 20 October 2022, Resources, Conservative & Recycling Vol. 188 No. 106701).
Kuo et al teach bacterial cellulose production from saccharification of dissolution pretreated waste cellulosic fabrics (textile material) by pretreating a waste fabric with a NaOH (7% w/v) and urea (12% w/v) solution at a temperature of -20ºC on page 1347, right column, 3rd paragraph. Kuo et al teach treating the pre-treated textile material with cellulase, separating the liquid phase from the solid phase and incubating a microbial culture to obtain microbial cellulose on page 1348. Kuo et al teach cutting the waste fabrics including 100% cotton and 40/60 polyester/cotton blends (instant claim 4) into small pieces (instant claim 2) on page 1347. Kuo et al teach removing a dye from the fabric using chitosan powder on page 1348 (instant claim 11).
Wang et al teach optimizing pre-treatment of cotton fabrics using NaOH and urea. Wang et al teach using 6% NaOH and 4% urea at room temperature for up to 48 hours (page 179, section 2.2) and Fig. 1 on page 180 (instant claims 8 and 9). Wang et al teach optimizing the length of enzyme (cellulase) treatment in Fig. 2 on page 180. Hence, Wang et al teach that it would have been obvious to one of Ordinary skill in the instant art before the effective filing date of the instant claims to optimize pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis of cotton fabrics for the production of glucose.
Gritsch et al teach optimization of conditions for enzymatic recovery of high purity glucose and polyester from textile blends. Gritsch et al teach pre-treatment of cotton/polyester fabrics using NaOH (1M) at 4ºC and urea (3M) at 50ºC on page 3, section 2.5.5 and Table 1 on page 5. Gritsch et al teach that the method can separate a useable product from the cotton fiber from the polyester fiber for further processing (page 2, left column, last paragraph).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the instant claims to modify the teachings of Kuo et to optimize a process for the production of microbial cellulose from a waste textile material using the teachings of Wang et al and Gritsch et al, especially optimizing alkaline pretreatment, reaction temperatures and reaction times. The use of thermal inactivation of cellulase enzyme in instant claim 13 would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the instant art especially since it would accelerate processing in at an industrial scale as suggested by Gritsch et al in section 3.3.1 on page 5. The glucose concentration in instant claim 14 would appear to be a desired result of the treating steps of claim 1, in addition Gritsch et al in Table 2 on page 5 shows 99.2% conversion of cotton fiber to glucose. The amount of a starter microbial culture in instant claim 15 would be an obvious optimization of the claimed process. The additives recited in instant claim 16 do not appear to functionally change the method of claim 1 as a whole, in addition the addition of glycerol or ascorbic acid to a microbial culture would not be non-obvious. The bleaching step at instant claim 17 appears to be a functional equivalent to the chitosan used by Kuo et al to remove any dye that would interfere with the cellulases. Given the teachings of the prior art, one of ordinary skill in the instant art would have had a reasonable expectation of success in modifying the teachings of Kuo et al to arrive at the instantly claimed processes.
Conclusion
No claims are allowed.
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/David H Kruse/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1663