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 .
Summary
This is the initial Office action based on application 18718327 filed 6/10/24.
Claims 1-20 are pending and have been fully considered.
Information Disclosure Statement
IDS filed on 6/10/24 have been considered by the examiner and copies of the Form PTO/SB/08 are attached to the office action.
Drawings
The Drawings filed on 6/10/24 are acknowledged and accepted by the examiner.
Specification
The Specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant's cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification. MPEP § 608.01
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
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 of this title, 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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ADAM ET AL. (WO2021204821A1; 10/14/2021) in view of AWAYSSA ET AL: "Modified HZSM-5 as FCC additive for enhancing light olefins yield from catalytic cracking of VGO", APPLIED CATALYSIS A: GENERAL, ELSEVIER, AMSTERDAM, NL, vol. 477, 25 March 2014 (2014-03-25), pages 172-183 (filed on IDS 6/10/24) in their entirety. Hereby referred to as ADAM, AWAYSSA.
Regarding claims 1-20:
ADAM teaches a process for the purification of a hydrocarbon stream comprising the following steps: a) Providing a hydrocarbon stream having a diene value of at most 1.5 g 12/100 g, preferably at most 1.0, preferably, even more preferably at most 0.5 gl2/100 g as measured according to UOP 326 and a bromine number of at least 5 g Br2/ 100g as measured according to ASTM D1159 and containing at least 10 wt % of pyrolysis plastic oil the other part of said hydrocarbon stream being a first diluent or alternatively providing a hydrocarbon stream containing only pyrolysis plastic oil; d) putting in contact the effluent obtained at the step a) with silica gel, clays, alkaline or alkaline earth metal oxide, iron oxide, ion exchange resins, active carbon, active aluminum oxide, molecular sieves, alkaline oxide and/or porous supports containing lamellar double hydroxide modified or not and silica gel, or any mixture thereof to trap silicon and/or metals and/or phosphorous and/or halogenates; e) performing a second hydrotreating step at a temperature of at least 200°C, f) recovering a purified hydrocarbon stream characterized in that said second hydrotreating step is performed over at least one catalyst that presents both (i) an hydrotreating function, namely at least one metal of group VIB as for example Mo, W in combination or not with a promotor selected from at least one metal of group VIII and/or VII IB as for example Ni and/or Co, and/or mixture thereof, preferably these metals being used in sulfided form and (ii) a trap function, namely said catalyst presents a BET surface area ranging from 150 m2/g to 400 m2/g. (see claim 1 of ADAMS).
In other words, ADAMS teaches a process for producing light olefins and aromatics, the process comprising: providing a waste plastic pyrolysis oil having a first boiling point ranging from about 80 °C to about 250 °C (page 7, lines 35-37; page 8, line 1); passing the waste plastic pyrolysis oil through a guard bed configured to adsorb chlorine components when present in the waste plastic pyrolysis oil (page 7, lines 14-18); providing a hydrocarbon stream having a second boiling point ranging from about 30 °C to about 250 °C (Figures 1 and 2; page 11, lines 23-27); combining the hydrocarbon stream with the waste plastic pyrolysis oil to provide a combined feed stream, wherein the combined feed stream includes 1 % by weight of the waste plastic pyrolysis oil (Figures 1 and 2; page 11, lines 23-27); and feeding the combined feed stream to a fluid catalytic cracking unit to yield a hydrocarbon product stream with a mixture of light olefins and aromatics (page 11, lines 31-33).
However, ADAMS does not teach i) the waste plastic pyrolysis oil is preheated to a temperature of about 120 °C or less before being combined with the hydrocarbon stream. ii) the catalytic cracking catalyst used in the fluid catalytic cracking contains a mixture of HZSM-5 and USY. Consequently, having a skilled artisan would be motivated towards AWAYSSA waste plastic pyrolysis oil to a temperature of about 120 °C or less, which is a case of optimizing the operating conditions of ADAMS. Furthermore, optimization of temperature values are prima facie obvious in the absence of new or unexpected results; as stated in the MPEP § 2144 “[W]here the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine experimentation.” Since it would have been obvious to optimize the temperature values, therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to rescale the temperature values, to include the temperature values as a limitation by the claims listed above.
It should be noted that an intended result of a process being claimed does not impart patentability to the claims when the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art. Furthermore, it has been held that obviousness is not rebutted by merely recognizing additional advantages or latent properties present in the prior art process and composition. Further, the fact that applicant has recognized another advantage which would flow naturally from following the suggestion of the prior art cannot be the basis for patentability when the differences would otherwise be obvious. Ex parte Obiaya, 227 USPQ 58, 60 (Bd.Pat. App. & Inter. 1985). In view of the teachings as set forth above, it is the examiners position that the references reasonably teach or suggest the limitations of the rejected claims; and Applicants have not established evidence otherwise or evidence of criticality and they have not shown that any additional methods would be expected to not be of similar processes to the evidence of record; and now burden shifts to applicants to establish evidence otherwise or evidence of criticality.
Modified ADAMS in view of AWAYSSA discloses the use of a mixture of HZSM-5 and USY for enhancing light olefins yield in a fluid catalytic cracking unit (see the Abstract of AWAYSSA).
Modified ADAMS in FIG. 1 and 2 - passing the waste plastic pyrolysis oil through a guard bed configured to adsorb silicon components when present in the waste plastic pyrolysis oil.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHANTEL GRAHAM whose telephone number is (571)270-5563. The examiner can normally be reached on M-TH 9:00 am - 7:00 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Prem Singh can be reached on 571-272-6381. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CHANTEL L GRAHAM/
Examiner, Art Unit 1771
/ELLEN M MCAVOY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1771