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 § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 2, 6, 7, and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being Walton et al. by (2014/0209515).
Regarding claim 2, Walton et al. discloses a method for blending regolith material for additive manufacturing, comprising the steps of:
(a) sorting and recombining regolith particles to achieve an optimal packing ratio – Fig. 3, [0022];
(b) vibrational compaction of the regolith to increase frictional shear strength [0038]; and
(c) stabilization of the regolith through the application of confinement strategies; wherein the plurality of regolith enhancement techniques produces the engineered regolith surface infrastructure having increased mechanical performance relative to the untreated bulk regolith [0039].
Regarding claim 6, wherein the step of sorting and recombining regolith particles involves retaining a primary distribution of particles within a 0.5 mm to 2 mm range and reintroducing 40-60% of particles smaller than 0.5 mm back into the primary distribution to fill interstitial voids and optimize packing density [0042].
Regarding claim 7, wherein the method further comprises the steps of screening or sieving the regolith material, the engineered mesh comprising an aperture pattern sized to complement the particle size distribution of the sorted and recombined regolith to enhance mechanical confinement [0022].
Regarding claim 9, wherein polymer additives such as solid organic polymer particles are mixed with the regolith in different ratios, material and sizes [0022], [0057].
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.
Claims 16-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Walton et al. by (2014/0209515) as applied to claims 2, 6, 7, and 9 above and further in view of Missout (2024/0424555).
Walton et al. discloses a method of blending regolith material as described above, wherein the dry powers are blended with ultra-low density fine particles with reduced bulk densities, while maintaining other physical properties quite similar to those of the original powder, [0031]. However, Walton et al. fails to discloses the step of heat-activating the regolith material and applying vibration to the material inside a formwork to consolidate the regolith to impart a desired geometric profile to the engineered regolith surface infrastructure.
Missout discloses a method of manufacturing of products from regolith material, comprising the steps of:
(a) laying down into a mold a first layer of particles of a material – step 900, from a plurality of reservoirs 236, each reservoir is connected to a guiding tube having a vibration part [0113];
(b) closing the mold – step 902;
(c) in-mold processing the first layer of particles present in the mold 220 by heating up content of the mold to exert the particles of the material to fuse at least partially with each other to generate a first manufactured layer – step 906;
(d) decreasing temperature – step 908;
(f) removing the formed product from the mold – step 920.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the regolith material/particles prepared by Walton into a heat-molding method as taught by Missout in order to form products make by regolith particles.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Thu-Khanh T. Nguyen whose telephone number is (571)272-1136. The examiner can normally be reached 7:30-4:30.
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/Thu Khanh T. Nguyen/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1743
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