Detailed Office Action
The communication dated 1/12/2026 has been entered and fully considered.
Claims 2, 6, 7, 13, and 14 have been canceled. Claim 15 is new. Claim 1 has been amended. Claim 1, 3-5, 8-12, and 15 are pending.
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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election of Group I in the reply filed on 1/12/2026 is acknowledged. Because applicant did not distinctly and specifically point out the supposed errors in the restriction requirement, the election has been treated as an election without traverse (MPEP § 818.01(a)).
Response to Arguments
In light of abandonment the ODP rejection towards 18/684,717 has been withdrawn.
In light of cancelation the enablement rejection to claim 2 has been withdrawn.
In light of cancelation the 112(b) rejection has been withdrawn.
HOGLUND as a primary reference is withdrawn from claim 1 because HOGLUND does not suggest the consistency of the impregnated rejects to be refined is 3 to 5%. Instead HOGLUND states that the chips are drained after impregnations suggesting high consistency CTMP refining.
The Examiner makes a new rejection based upon HAGGLUND (this is a new reference and although the names are similar it is different reference from HUGLUND).
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.
Claim 1, 3-5, 8-12, and 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. 5,879,510 HAGGLUND et al., hereinafter HAGGLUND, in view of Mechanical Pulping edited by LEASK, hereinafter LEASK.
As for claims 1, 3 and 15, HAGGLUND discloses impregnating wood chips and refining the wood chips [col. lines 3 10-21] to obtain a pulp with a freeness of 650 ml CSF or higher which falls within the claimed range [col. 2 lines 59-60 Table 1]. HAGGLUND discloses a Conflo refiner which operates at low-consistency [Figure 2 and col. 5 lines 45-51] as the final refining stage which falls within the claimed range. HAGGLUND discloses low-consistency refiners operate at a consistency of 4-5% which falls within the claimed range [col 8 lines 26-28].
HAGGLUND discloses screening in a screen room after low-consistency refining and then further processing [col. 3 lines 19-21] but does not disclose screening accepts/rejects and consistency of the pulp after screening.
LEASK discloses pulp processing including screening usually at 2-3% but up to 4-5% consistency [pg. 189 col. 2 section 5]. LEASK discloses that following screening the pulp is thickened prior to bleaching [pg. 178 Figure 125, pg. 179 Figure 135, pg. 217 col. 2]. LEASK further suggest the use of screw press for thickening pulp up to 35% consistency which falls within the claimed range prior to bleaching/pulp storage [pg. 224 col. 2 section 4].
At the time of the invention it would be obvious to screen and thicken the pulp of HAGGLUND as suggested by LEASK. It is prima facie obvious to combine two known processes according to known methods to yield predictable results [MPEP 2143 (I)(A)]. In the instant case the pulping of HAGGLUND and the screening/thickening of LEASK merely perform the same function as they do separately. The person of ordinary skill in the art would predict that the screening and thickening of LEASK would remove rejects from the pulp of HAGGLUND and increase the pulps consistency.
The inlet consistency to the screw is as low as 1% (i.e. greater than 1%) which overlaps the instant claimed range [pg. 224 col. 2 section 4]. Further, as the screens according to LEASK operate at 2-3 to 4-5% consistency the accepts leaving the screens will be at about that range and therefore feed the screw at said consistencies.
LEASK discloses that the lower the reject rate the lower the removal efficiency of shives [pg. 192 Figure 150]. LEASK further disclose that the difference in CSF between the incoming pulp and accept fraction [pg. 193 Figure 153]. At less than 20% rejects the difference in CSF is less than 20% [pg. 193 Figure 153]. Therefore, LEASK shows that reject rate (accept rate) is a clear result effective variable. At the time of the invention it would be obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art to optimize the reject rate through routine experimentation to obtain the desired shive content and freeness changes. A high accept rate can be used as HAGGLUND is already low in shives.
As for claims 4 and 5, HAGGLUND does not disclose bleaching of the pulp after screening/thickening. LEASK discloses that peroxide bleaching can produce brightened pup [pg. 242 Figure 194] and at uses a consistency of 8%-20% consistency which overlaps the instant claimed range. At the time of the invention it would be obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art to apply the peroxide bleaching of LEASK to the CTMP pulp of HAGGLUND. The person of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to do so by LEASK to achieve the desired brightness level.
As for claim 8 and 9, LEASK suggest that reject pulp can be reject refined before sending back to the thickening stage [pg. 176 Figure 125, pg. 179 Figure 135, pg. 210 col. 2]. At the time of the invention it would be obvious to use reject refining to reduce shive content while recovering that fiber to increase yield. LEASK suggest that reject refining should be at a consistency of 25-30% [col. 210 section 2] using a screw. At the time of the invention it would be obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art to use a screw to increase consistency prior to reject refining. The person of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to do so by LEASK as high consistency reject refining uses less energy, lower debris, higher burst and tear strength [pg. 213 col. 2 section C -pg. 214 col. 1].
As for claim 10, HAGGLUND discloses sodium sulfite or alkaline peroxide [col. 3 lines 11-15].
As for claim 12, HAGGLUND discloses CTMP pulping [Figures 1 and 2, col. 3 lines 1-3]
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over HAGGLUND and LEASK, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of U.S. 3,016,324 TEXTOR, hereinafter TEXTOR.
As for claim 11, HAGGLUND discloses screening CTMP pulp which forms an accept stream and a rejects stream. HAGGLUND discloses that the rejects (“coarse fiber material”) from the screen should be returned [col. 3 lines 19-21, “returning said material for further processing”] . The return could be before impregnation, before high consistency refining, before low consistency refining or after low consistency refining and before screening. HAGGLUND does not specify which. Therefore neither, HAGLLUND nor LEASK explicitly suggest sensing the rejects back to impregnation.
TEXTOR discloses a thermomechanical or chemithermomechanical pulping process for wood [col. 1 lines 10-13]. TEXTOR discloses taking wood from a hopper (34) and filling vessel (35) with wood chips wherein the wood chips are impregnated with liquor from tank (36) [Figure 6, col. 5 lines 30-35]. The wood chips are blown into live bottom bin (37) wherein the impregnation continues [Figure 6, col. 5 lines 57-60]. From live bottom tank (37) the chips go to a screw wherein liquid is pressed out and the chips are refined in a primary refiner and a secondary refiner [Figure 6, col. 5 lines 66-73]. The refined chips are then screened in screen (48) forming an accepts stream which goes to cleaners (49) and a rejects stream which goes to the top of live bottom bin (37) [Figure 6, col. 6 lines 1-7].
The Examiner interprets the screened rejects going to the top of live bottom tank to read on “back to said impregnation step” as the treatment liquor will continue to impregnate the prior to refining. In the alternative, it would be obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art to add the reject stream to chip hopper (34) [Figure 6]. This is a change in the order of addition by adding the rejects prior to adding liquor (36) and is prima facie obvious [MPEP 2144.04(IV)(C)]. The person of ordinary skill in the art would expect that changing the order of addition would allow more time for the shives to be exposed to sulfite chemicals and therefore soften more and be easier to turn into accept pulp in the refiners.
At the time of the invention it would be obvious to apply the known reject treating technique of TEXTOR to treat rejects of HAGGLUND/LEASK. The person of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to do so as this technique improves upon HAGGLUND/LEASK by eliminating the need for a separate reject refiner wherein the rejects are instead treated by the primary and secondary refiners used for the wood chips. The person of ordinary skill in the art would expect success as HAGGLUND suggests that rejects be “returned” for further processing.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANTHONY J CALANDRA whose telephone number is (571)270-5124. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 7:45 AM -4:15 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Abbas Rashid can be reached at (571)270-7457. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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ANTHONY J. CALANDRA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1748
/Anthony Calandra/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1748
Prosecution Insights