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
Claims 14-19 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
The traversal is on the grounds that the groups are linked to form a single general inventive concept. This is not found persuasive because the method of Claim 1 does not recite a special technical feature as it does not make a contribution over the Prior Art. The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claim Objections
Claim 9 is objected to under 37 CFR 1.75(c) as being in improper form because a multiple dependent claim shall refer to such other claims in the alternative only. See MPEP § 608.01(n).
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, 7 and 9-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by the Publication “Nanostructured Carbon Florets as Scavenger of As3+, Cr6+, Cd2+, and Hg2+ for water Remediation” to Moronshing et al.
Regarding Claim 1, Moronshing et al. teaches a method for the preparation of porous hard-carbon nanostructure comprising the step of:
a) synthesizing porous hard-carbon nanostructure via chemical vapour deposition (Pages 469-470 and 475) of a carbon source (acetylene) on a silica-based template such as dendritic fibrous nanosilica (DFNS); and
b) removing silica through alkali-mediated (NaOH) etching thereby resulting in formation of porous hard-carbon nanostructure.
Regarding Claim 7, Moronshing et al. teaches preparing an isopropanolic dispersion (Page 475) for spray coating on glass and silicon substrates.
Regarding Claim 9, the recited limitations read broadly on a nebulous mental step of selecting a substrate for an intended use, and therefore do not add to the method of Claims 1 and 7.
Regarding Claims 10-12, Moronshing et al. teaches preparation by hydrolysis of at least one silica source (TEOS) in the prescence of at least one surfactant (1-pentanol).
Regarding Claim 13, Moronshing et al. teaches (See Abstract and Pages 469 and 475) the porous hard-carbon nanostructures are nanocarbon florets (NCF) having surface are in the range 850 to 1200 m2/g.
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.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the Publication “Nanostructured Carbon Florets as Scavenger of As3+, Cr6+, Cd2+, and Hg2+ for water Remediation” to Moronshing et al. in view of US Publication 2009/0258782 to Gogotsi et al.
Regarding Claim 8, as applied above, Moronshing et al. teaches the method of the invention substantially as claimed, but does not expressly teach 2-10 minutes of sonication. However, sonication for 2 minutes is known for forming a carbon powder dispersion. For example, Gogotsi et al. teaches (Paragraph 42) carbon dispersion using sonication for 2 minutes. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use 2-minute sonication in the method of Moronshing et al. in order to form a dispersion with predictable results.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-6 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.
Conclusion
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/ROBERTS P CULBERT/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1716
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