Prosecution Insights
Last updated: August 16, 2026
Application No. 18/663,140

INTELLIGENT COAL GANGUE WASHING METHOD GUIDED BY DEEP REINFORCEMENT LEARNING AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION

Non-Final OA §112
Filed
May 14, 2024
Priority
Dec 04, 2023 — CN 2023116406508
Examiner
ELARABI, TAREK A
Art Unit
Tech Center
Assignee
China University of Mining and Technology
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
70%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
5m
Est. Remaining
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 70% — above average
70%
Career Allowance Rate
161 granted / 230 resolved
+10.0% vs TC avg
Strong +36% interview lift
Without
With
+36.3%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 8m
Avg Prosecution
22 currently pending
Career history
254
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
12.5%
-27.5% vs TC avg
§103
36.6%
-3.4% vs TC avg
§102
32.8%
-7.2% vs TC avg
§112
17.3%
-22.7% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 230 resolved cases

Office Action

§112
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 . Status of Claims This Office Action is in response to application number 18/663,140 filed on 05/14/2024, in which claims 1-4 are presented for examination. Priority Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 USC §119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. CN2023116406508, filed on 12/04/2023. Information Disclosure Statement No Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) has been submitted as of the date of this Office Action. Examiner Notes Claim(s) 1-4 is/are rejected under 35 USC §112(b) for being indefinite, and 35 USC §112(a) for failing to comply with the enablement requirement. See rejections outlined below. Due to the significant issues of claim(s) 1-4 of being replete with indefinite claim limitations, failing to comply with the enablement requirement and typographic errors/informalities, this will be the only rejection of these claims. Thus, the claims will not be further examined on substantive grounds. The examiner will not attempt to examine the claims over the prior art for each plausible/potential interpretation. Once applicant has corrected the enablement issues, a prior art rejection may be issued. It should be noted that if an art rejection is issued, it will not be considered a new grounds of rejection. Claim Objections Claim(s) 1, 3 & 4 is/ are objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 1 recites “an OPC protocol” in line 6. It should be “an Open Platform Communications (OPC) protocol…”. Claim 1 recites “, meanwhile, judging …” in line 13. It should be “, judging …”. Claim 3 recites “a action” in line 13. It should be “an action”. Claim 3 recites “model deep Q-learning network” in line 20. It should be “model of deep Q-learning network”. Claim 3 recites “a activation” in line 22. It should be “an activation”. Claim 3 recites “DQN” in line 40. It should be “Deep Q-Network (DQN)”. Claim 4 recites “BP deep neural network” in lines 8-9. It should be “Backpropagation (BP) deep neural network”. Appropriate correction is required. Claim Rejections - 35 USC §112 The following is a quotation of 35 USC §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 USC §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. Claim(s) 1-4 is/are rejected under 35 USC §112(b) because: Claim 1 recites the limitation “the key control links” in line 3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 1 recites the limitation “the synchronous information acquisition frequency” in line 5. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 1 recites the limitation “the collected data” in line 6. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 1 recites the limitation “the sampling frequency” in lines 6-7. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 1 recites the limitations “the communication” in lines 11 & 15. There are insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim. Claim 1 recites the limitations “the amount of accumulated data” in lines 11 & 16. There are insufficient antecedent basis for these limitation in the claim. Claim 1 recites the limitation “the 32*f sampling values” in line 12. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 1 recites the limitations “the jig operation” in lines 13 & 17. There are insufficient antecedent basis for these limitation in the claim. Claim 1 recites the limitation “the alarm information” in line 13. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 1 recites the limitations “the height of bucket lifting belt, the change range of buoy and the gate opening” in lines 14-15. There are insufficient antecedent basis for these limitation in the claim. Claim 1 recites the limitation “the automatic operation” in line 22. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 2 recites the limitation “the key control links” in line 3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 2 recites the limitation “the clean coal ash” in lines 3-4. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitations “the communication” in line 2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “the amount of accumulated data” in line 3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “the jig operation” in line 4. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “the clean coal ash content” in line 6. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “the inertia of the running process of the jig” in line 12. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “the typical model of deep reinforcement learning” in line 15. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “the operation of the jig driver” in line 17. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “the typical model deep Q-learning network” in line 20. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “the Q-learning network” in line 29. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitations “the requirements or the number of training times” in line 33. There are insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “the training of Q-learning network” in lines 33-34. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “the training of typical model deep Q-learning network” in line 35. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “the subsequent jig” in line 39. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “the negative impact” in line 40. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “the exploration ability of state space” in lines 40-41. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 3 recites the limitation “the Epsilon greedy strategy” in line 41. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 4 recites the limitations “the communication” in line 2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 4 recites the limitation “the amount of accumulated data” in line 3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 4 recites the limitation “the jig operation” in lines 4-5. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 4 recites the limitation “the operation data” in line 6. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 4 recites the limitations “the training of BP” in lines 8 & 25. There are insufficient antecedent basis for these limitation in the claim. Claim 4 recites the limitation “the training process” in line 13. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 4 recites the limitations “the prediction error” in line 19. There are insufficient antecedent basis for these limitation in the claim. It is not clear if the said “prediction error” limitation refers to “a prediction error” limitation in line 17 or “a prediction error” limitation in line 25 of claim 3, or if being the same or different prediction error. Examiner suggests amending the claim to recite “the prediction error” in line 17 to overcome this rejection. Claim 4 recites the limitations “the requirements or the number of training times” in line 24. There are insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim. Claim 4 recites the limitations “the solution method of deep reinforcement learning” in line 24. There are insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim. Claims 2-4 are rejected for incorporating the error(s) of their respective base claims by dependency. Claim(s) 1-4 is/are rejected under 35 USC §112(b) or 35 USC §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. The term “when the communication is good” in claim(s) 1 & 3 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “good” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree communication connectivity or quality, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. Claims 2 & 4 are rejected for incorporating the error(s) of their respective base claims by dependency. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112 The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a): (a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention. The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112: The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention. Claim(s) 1-4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the enablement requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to enable one skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and/or use the invention. The examiner could not find any support in the Specification or the Drawings for the “a jig which is an IntelliSense needs” limitation of claim 1 lines 3-4. Examiner found the closest support in ¶46, which recites: [0046] S1, intelliSense needs to install different types of sensors in the key control links of a jig, an all-round real-time acquisition of control data is realized, and the synchronous information acquisition frequency is maintained by each sensor. (Emphasis added) However, ¶46 does not describe neither the recited “jig”, nor the “IntelliSense needs” or how a “jig” being an “IntelliSense needs”. The examiner could not find any support for the “IntelliSense” and/or the “IntelliSense needs” in the Specification or the Drawings. Accordingly, the “IntelliSense needs” limitation of claim 1 was not described in the specification in such a way as to enable one skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and/or use the invention. Claims 2-4 are rejected for incorporating the error(s) of their respective base claims by dependency. Conclusion The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure. See attached PTO-892. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Tarek Elarabi whose telephone number is (313)446-4911. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday thru Thursday; 6:00 AM - 4:00 PM EST. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Peter Nolan can be reached on (571)270-7016. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571)273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see https://ppair-my.uspto.gov/pair/PrivatePair. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or (571)272-1000. /Tarek Elarabi/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3661
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

May 14, 2024
Application Filed
Jul 21, 2026
Examiner Interview (Telephonic)
Jul 27, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §112 (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
70%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+36.3%)
2y 8m (~5m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 230 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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