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 Objections
Claims 1 and 2 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1: “shadow carbonation” (line 17) should read “shallow carbonization”;
Claim 1: “a method including following steps” should read “a method including the following steps”;
Claims 1 and 2: some values have spaces between values and units, while others do not (e.g., claim 1, line 14, “2mm-10 mm”); for consistency, spaces should be used between all values and units, or should not be used between any values and units.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Interpretation
Claim 1 recites the limitation “pipe pile concrete” in the preamble. Pursuant to MPEP 2111.02, limitations regarding the intended use of a product are only meaningful limitations if they result in a structural limitation. Claim 1 recites a product defined by a specific composition, with specific proportions of components, but there is nothing in the claim or the specification to suggest that “pipe pile concrete” is itself a limitation affecting the composition. Any substantially similar composition is expected to have the same properties as the claimed invention, and is thus suitable for the same intended use. Accordingly, any prior art composition that arrives at the claimed invention will be considered to also meet the “pipe pile concrete” limitation, as the prior art composition would at least be capable of the claimed intended use, even if the intended use is not explicitly recited in the prior art.
Claim 1 recites the limitations “rubber fiber is obtained by”, and “rubber fiber is prepared by”; these limitations are product-by-process limitations, which, pursuant to MPEP 2113, are not limited to the manipulations of the recited steps, only the structure implied by the steps. The as-filed disclosure does not appear to recite any data or evidence to indicate that the recited preparation methods of rubber fiber achieve results that cannot be achieved by rubber fibers prepared by other methods. Therefore, any prior art teaching any comparable product will be considered to meet these limitations, regardless of whether or not the rubber fibers of the composition are prepared by the processes recited in the product claims.
Further regarding claims 4–7, these claims all depend from claim 1 and further limit the product-by-process of claim 1. For the reasons stated above, the product-by-process limitations of claims 4–7 will be met by prior art teaching a comparable product, regardless of whether or not the product is produced by the claimed process.
Claim 1 further recites the limitation “in clear water”. This phrase does not convey any information about the purity of the water, only the turbidity. For purposes of examination, the Examiner will herein interpret any clear water (including low-purity, tap water, and/or ultrapure water) as meeting this limitation.
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 1–8 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 1, the phrases “energy-saving”, “environment-friendly”, and “high impact resistance” are relative; the phrases are not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. For purposes of examination, the Examiner will consider any comparable product to have the recited properties, because any comparable product is expected to have comparable properties (see MPEP 2112). There is no recitation of how much energy is used in the present invention versus other concrete compositions; there is no recitation of why the present invention is friendlier to the environment than other compositions; and, the present invention attributes the impact resistance at least in part to the rubber fibers (see specification, paragraph 0089).
Further regarding claim 1, “a sand content of the sand and gravels” does not have a clear metric; it is unclear if the sand content is based on a weight ratio (i.e., 31.6–36.6 wt.%), stoichiometric ratio (i.e., “31.6–36.6 mol%”), or some other metric. Paragraph 0026 of the specification recites a sand and gravels content in terms of kg (whereas claim 1 recites units of kg/m3), and subsequently recites a sand content of 32.9%, so for purposes of examination, the Examiner will herein interpret the sand content of claim 1 as a weight percentage.
Regarding claims 1 and 3, “replace the sand and gravels” leads to indefiniteness because the amount of sand and gravels has already been introduced, so it is unclear if the amount of sand and gravel that is to be replaced comes from the previously introduced amount of sand and gravels (e.g., 20 vol.% sand and gravel, with a 5 vol.% replacement rate, = 15 vol.% sand and gravel and 5 vol.% rubber fiber), or if the amount of sand and gravels is meant to convey the post-substitution amount (e.g., 20 vol.% sand and gravel, and 5 vol.% substitution rate, = 25 vol.% total). The specification does not clarify this indefiniteness, as paragraph 0026 of the specification refers to the aggregate as being composed of the sand and gravels and the rubber fiber, while claim 1 refers to a sand and gravels content and then recites “the modified rubber fiber is added to replace the sand and gravels of an equal volume in aggregate, with a replacement rate of 5-20%”. Paragraph 0026 of the specification recites 1819.25 kg of sand and gravels, 27.12 kg of rubber fiber which is 15 vol.% of the aggregate, and the aggregate being composed of the sand and gravels and the rubber fiber; this suggests that the total mass of the aggregate is 1846.37 kg, of which 85 vol.% is sand and gravels. The sand and gravels in claim 1 are recited with units of kg/m3, so 1819.25 kg ÷ 0.85 m3 = 2140.3 kg/m3 sand and gravels, which falls outside the claimed range. Therefore, Applicants’ intended meaning cannot be ascertained from the claims or the specification.
For purposes of examination, the Examiner will herein interpret claim 1 in plain terms: a sand and gravels content of 1784–1925 kg/m3, of which 5–20 of that 1 m3 volume is replaced with rubber fibers; if there are 1784 kg of sand and gravels per 1 m3, and 20% of that volume is replaced with rubber fibers, that means only 80% of the mass of sand and gravels remains in 80% of the volume, i.e., 1784 kg/m3 × 0.8 m3 = 1427.2 kg, and the remaining 0.2 m3 is rubber fibers, which have a mass of 36.2 kg (paragraph 0026 recites 27.12 kg rubber fibers as being 15 vol.%, and 27.12 kg ÷ 0.15 m3 = 181 kg/m3, so 181 kg/m3 × 0.2 m3 = 36.2 kg), all per 1 m3; by this same logic, the upper bound of 1925 kg/m3 sand and gravels, being replaced at a rate of 5 vol.% by rubber fiber, will have a sand/gravels content of 1828.75 kg and a rubber fiber content of 9.05 kg, all per 1 m3.
Further regarding claim 1, the phrase “weighing a certain amount of rubber fiber” recited in step (1) of the rubber fiber preparation process is unclear. A person having ordinary skill in the art would not reasonably be able to determine the scope of what is being claimed because “a certain amount” does not convey how much actually needs to be weighed. If a person having ordinary skill in the art wanted to prepare 10 kg of modified rubber fiber, they would need to weigh more than 10 kg of unmodified rubber fiber, because the first step requires washing off impurities and additives on the surface of the rubber fiber, which means 10 kg of unmodified fiber will produce less than 10 kg of modified fiber. However, because these preparation steps are product-by-process limitations (see the above Claim Interpretation section), the limitations being examined are not affected by this indefiniteness, and thus the Examiner does not need to provide an interpretation of the limitation for purposes of examination.
Claims 2–8, being dependent on claim 1, inherit its deficiencies, and are rejected on the same grounds of indefiniteness.
Regarding claim 2, the recited component “98 silicon powder” is unclear. In the context of concretes, the use of elemental silicon powder is niche, but known. However, the limitation recites “the silicon powder is 98 silicon powder”, which does not correspond to a recognized product. The specification only states “The silicon powder is imported 98 silicon powder” (paragraph 0026). For purposes of examination, the Examiner will herein interpret “98 silicon powder” as elemental silicon powder having 98% purity.
Regarding claim 8, the phrase “stirring evenly” in method step (3) leads to indefiniteness because it can be interpreted in different ways, e.g., stirring at a constant speed, stirring to maintain visual uniformity, stirring to eliminate dry pockets, etc. Because the phrase does not have a clear meaning, a person having ordinary skill in the art would not reasonably be apprised of the scope of the claim. For purposes of examination, the Examiner will herein interpret any prior art stirred composition as meeting this limitation, since constant speed, visual uniformity, homogeneity, etc., are all standard practice in concrete formulations.
Further regarding claim 8, the phrase “standing in a shade” recited in method step (5) is unclear. The Examiner will herein interpret this limitation as referring to a step of curing the concrete in a shady area, i.e., away from direct sunlight, which can be accomplished by physically placing the green concrete in a shady area, covering the green concrete with a blanket, or simply preparing it indoors.
Further regarding claim 8, the recited curing times in steps (5) and (6) and in the final paragraph lead to indefiniteness because the recited curing times disagree with each other. The total curing time within the formwork is stated to be 12 hours, which is interpreted as exactly 12 hours, with not less than 5 hours in a delayed curing phase (referring to the shade curing of step (5)), not less than 2 hours in a temperature-increasing phase (referring to the steam pool heating of step (6)), and not less than 10 hours in a constant temperature phase (referring to the constant temperature environment of the steam pool of step (6)). The phrase “not less than” is synonymous with “at least”, but even taking the minimum allowable curing times of 5+2+10=17 hours, this already exceeds the total curing time of 12 hours. The specification at paragraph 0021 recites a curing time of 12–13 hours, so even if Applicants meant to claim “not less than 12 hours”, their specification only supports a curing time of up to 13 hours. Due to the conflicting curing times within claim 8 and the specification, it is difficult to interpret this claim for purposes of examination. However, curing times and conditions are known to be result-effective variables in concrete formulations, and there is insufficient data in the specification to establish criticality of the claimed curing times and conditions. Therefore, any prior art reciting a sufficiently similar composition and method, even if curing times differ, will be considered to meet the recited curing times through routine optimization, as adjustment of curing times is well within the abilities of a person having ordinary skill in the art (see MPEP 2144.05(II)).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Long et al. (CN 102001848 A): teaches a comparable concrete composition comprising cement, slag, sand, gravels, rubber particles, water reducer, and water.
Yuangang et al. (Advanced Materials Research, 2013, vol. 671–674, pg. 1839–1843): teaches a comparable high-performance concrete composition comprising cement, slag powder with the claimed specific surface area, sand, gravels, water reducer, and water.
Gupta et al. (Journal of Cleaner Production, 2016, 112, 702–711): teaches a comparable concrete composition comprising cement, sand, rubber fibers as coarse aggregate, water reducer, and water.
Gupta et al. (Construction and Building Materials, 2014, 73, 562–574): teaches a comparable concrete composition comprising cement, sand, gravels, rubber fibers with the claimed dimensions as a partial substitute for fine aggregate, water reducer, and water.
Oleksandrovych et al. (UA 141151 U): teaches a concrete composition comprising cement, sand, and metallic silicon.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Ryan P Loughran whose telephone number is (571)272-2173. The examiner can normally be reached M, Tu, W, F after 5:30 PM and Th from 8 AM to 6 PM.
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/R.P.L./Examiner, Art Unit 1731
/ANTHONY J GREEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1731
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