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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election of Group I (Claims 1-2) in the reply filed on 07/16/2026 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)). Claims 3-7 are withdrawn. Claims 1-2 are examined herein.
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.
Claims 1-2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP’649 (JP2014-080649), and further in view of CN’281 (CN103154281).
Regarding claim 1, JP’649 teaches an agglomerated ore containing iron oxide and 40-80 mass% metallic iron and the agglomerated ore contains 20-40% porosity (Abstract; Page 3), which meets the recited porosity recited in claim 1. JP’649 discloses that the agglomerated ore is made by molding fine iron ore to make a molded briquette, pre-reducing the molded briquette to produce reduced ore, pulverizing the reduced ore, molding the pulverized ore to make molded briquette so that unreduced iron oxide in the core is exposed to the surface layer (Page 3, 5 and 6), which meets the limitation that at lease some of the iron oxide particles are exposed on a surface layer of the agglomerated ore as recited in claim 1.
JP’649 does not disclose that the agglomerated ore contains iron carbide and the amount of carbon is 1-4.5 mass%. CN’281 teaches a method of processing an iron ore and discloses that after reducing the iron ore, carbonizing is performed on the reduced iron ore to make an agglomerated ore containing 20-34 mass% iron carbide ([0009] to [0012]). CN’281 further discloses that the presence of iron carbide in the iron ore is beneficial in making an ore easy to melt and reducing fuel cost for melting the ore (Abstract; [0080] to [0084]). Thus, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to carbonize the reduced iron ore as taught by CN’281 in the process of making the agglomerated ore of JP’649 in order to make an ore that is easy to melt and to reduce fuel cost for melting the ore as disclosed by CN’281. Since the percentage of carbon in iron carbide (FeC3) is 6.67 mass%, 20-34 mass% iron carbide disclosed by CN’281 contains 1.334-2.27 mass% carbon and meets the recited carbon amount in claim 1.
Since CN’281 discloses iron carbide is formed by reacting metallic iron with carbon ([0030]), the total amount of metallic iron and iron in iron carbide after carbonizing is the same as the amount of metallic iron prior to carbonization. JP’649 discloses that the reduced ore contains 40-80 mass% metallic iron (Abstract), thus, the total amount of metallic iron and iron in iron carbide after carbonizing is also 40-80 mass% and meets the recited percentage of metallic iron and iron in iron carbide in claim 1.
Regarding claim 2, CN’281 discloses that after reduction and carbonizing, the ore contains iron oxide, Fe and iron carbide ([0029]), which meets the limitation recited in claim 2.
Conclusion
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/XIAOWEI SU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1733
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