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 .
Applicants’ Preliminary Amendment, filed on March 15, 2024, has been made of record and entered. In this amendment, claims 1-3, 5, 7-10, and 12-14 have been amended, and new claims 16-19 have been added.
Claims 1-19 are presently pending in this application.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Applicants’ Priority Document was filed on March 15, 2024.
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 1, 2, 5-9, 13, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by “Simple low cost porphyrinic photosensitizers for large scale chemoselective oxidation of sulfides to sulfoxides under green conditions: targeted protonation of porphyrins,” by Aida G. Mojarrad et al. (hereinafter “Mojarrad et al.,” Applicants’ submitted art).
Regarding claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, and 18, Mojarrad et al. teach the aerobic oxidation of sulfides, e.g., thioanisole, photocatalyzed by meso-tetra(phenyl)porphyrin, H2TPP, to form methyl phenyl sulfoxide. Said oxidation occurs in the presence of oxygen and under irradiation under blue, white, or red light with an LED lamp. See Table 1 and page 775 of Mojarrad et al., in the section titled “Results and discussion”, and also page 769, in the section titled “General oxidation procedure”, and Table 2.
Regarding claim 7, Mojarrad et al. teach that the aforementioned aerobic oxidation is conducted using a 1:4000 molar ratio of catalyst (H2TPP) to substrate (thioanisole). Said molar ratio converts to an amount of 0.00025, or 0.025%, of catalyst, based on the molar amount of substrate. See page 774 of Mojarrad et al., in the excerpt above Table 2.
In view of these teachings, Mojarrad et al. anticipate claims 1, 2, 5-9, 13, and 18.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 4, 10-12, 16, 17, and 19 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claims 14 and 15 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Neither Mojarrad et al. nor the cited references of record teach or suggest the limitations of these claims, regarding (a) the sulfides of formula (I) recited in claims 3, 4, 16, and 17, (b) the limitations of claims 10 and 11 regarding the oxidation being performed in an aerosol or gas phase and the H2TPP being deposited on a substrate, (c) the air-filtering device recited in claims 14 and 15, or (d) the claimed molar percentage range of 0.1 mol% to 1 mol% of catalyst, relative to the molar amount of sulfide, as recited in claim 19.
Exemplary prior art includes Jiang et al. (CN 109970607), which teaches the preparation of sulfoxide via photocatalytic oxidation of a thioether, wherein a carbazole porphyrin-based conjugated organic polymer serves as catalyst. Said catalyst is structurally different from that recited in claims 1 and 14, in that in the below structure, the circled portion differs from Ar1, Ar2, Ar3, and Ar4 substituted by, for example, NR7R8 in Applicants’ claims, where R7 and R8 are, independently of one another, H or a (C1-C3) alkyl:
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553
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As can be seen, the circled portion shows what corresponds to Applicants’ NR7R8 as a joined structure.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PATRICIA L HAILEY whose telephone number is (571)272-1369. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ching-Yiu (Coris) Fung, can be reached at 571-270-5713. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Patricia L. Hailey/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1732 June 22, 2026
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