DETAILED CORRESPONDENCE
Acknowledgements
This office action is in response to the communication filed 3/17/2026.
Claims 19-21 are new. Claims 2-21 are pending and have been examined.
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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Previous rejections under 35 USC 112 are withdrawn in view of Applicant’s amendments.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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 6, 2-3, 5 and 19-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Herchl et al. (US 2022/0243396 A1) (cited by Applicant) in view of Titcomb et al. (US 2024/0092991 A1).
Re claim 6, Herchl discloses a textile recycling system (abstract) comprising:
a sorting module (¶ [0030], [0039] “pre-sorting”; see also ¶ [0094], [0101]) configured to receive incoming textiles and to sort the incoming textiles into a plurality of individual fabric streams, wherein the plurality of individual fabric streams include a cotton stream (¶ [0094] presorted…cutting waste…very high cotton content), a polyester stream (¶ [0094] known composition may be drawn…[f]or example sportsware), and a cotton/polyester blend stream (¶ [0094], [0101] selectively deplete polyester…from cellulose);
one or more individualized treatment processes (¶ [0027]), wherein each individualized treatment process is configured to receive an individual fabric stream and to produce a treated fabric stream, and wherein each individualized treatment process includes one or more of the following subsystems:
a cotton individualized treatment process (¶ [0027], wherein the cotton individualized treatment process is configured to receive one of the plurality of individual fabric streams and to produce a treated fabric stream, including:
cotton subsystems including:
a decoloring system for cotton (¶ [0082]-[0083], [0103], [0109] bleaching); and
a dry sanitization system for cotton (¶ [0082], [0112]);
a polyester/cotton blend subsystem including:
a fiber separation system for polyester/cotton blends (¶ [0030], [0043], [0061]-[0063], [0101] separating non-cellulosic fibers): and
a mechanical recycling process (¶ [0101]-[0102] mechanically separating and chemically separating) configured to receive one or more treated fabric streams from the plurality of individualized treatment processes and to produce recycled fibers of the respective treated fabric stream (¶ [0037]),
Herchl does not explicitly disclose a decoloring system for polyester/cotton blends and a polyester subsystem including a decoloring system for polyester. However, Titcomb discloses it is known in the textile recycling system art (abstract) to provide a sorting module (see fig. 1 ref. 110) for a plurality of individual fabric streams including cotton, polyester/cotton blend, and polyester (ref. 111-2, 111-3, 111-1; ¶ [0032]) and a decoloring system for polyester/cotton blends (¶ [0034] 111-3…polycotton blends may also be treated in Module B to removed undesired components…dyes) and a decoloring system for polyester (¶ [0036] Module B is configured to remove dyes) (Examiner notes “individualized treatment process” may be broadly interpreted as the process and does not include individual treatment devices. Nonetheless, Examiner highlights that each of the streams 111-3 and 111-2 are independent ¶ [0032] and that designation of Module B is a process description and/or would have been prima facie obvious to be made as a separate process with a separate device, as implied by ¶ [0034] polyester-cotton blends may be processed using different solvents and/or using different sequences of applying the solvents, to prevent cross-contamination).
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the system of Herchl to further include a decoloring system for polyester/cotton blends and a decoloring system for polyester, as suggested by Titcomb, in order to remove dye for recycling for every stream.
Re claims 2-3, 5, Herchl further discloses wherein the sorting module includes a manual sorting system and a garment sorting system (¶ [0039] mechanically, also manually); wherein manual sorting system separates low-value garments and blends from the incoming textiles (¶ [0039] “unusable amounts”); wherein the sorting module further includes an automatic trims removal system (¶ [0055] zip fasteners, rivets, etc. may be separated).
Re claims 19-21, Titcomb further discloses wherein the decoloring system (module B) is a non-bleach-based decoloring system (¶ [0036] remove dyes…with a solvent) for each stream (see fig. 1 polyester, polycotton and cellulose each having dye removed by Module B).
Claims 4 and 7-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Herchl in view of Titcomb, as applied above, and further in view of Han (CN111304787B) (cited by Applicant).
Re claims 4 and 7-13, Herchl/Titcomb discloses as shown above including by blend (see rejection to claim 1 pre-sorting), but does not disclose wherein the garment sorting system separates the incoming textiles by textile type, color. However, Han discloses it is known in the fabric recycling art (abstract) to separate by textile type, color, and blend (abstract “roughly sort the types of yarn and cloth, color and colorless, pulp and pulp-free, pure cotton, chemical fiber and mixed fiber”).
Re claims 7-13, regarding “wherein the individual fabric streams include a black cotton stream, a white cotton stream, a non-black and white cotton stream, a denim cotton stream, a black polyester stream, a white polyester stream, a non-black and white polyester stream, and a polyester/cotton blend stream” and “wherein the denim cotton stream includes a black denim cotton stream, a dark navy denim cotton stream, a medium navy denim cotton stream, and a light navy denim cotton stream”, the selection of specific denim colors is prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art depending on the specificity of the color quality of the outlet recycle stream. Claims 9-13 are drawn to specific decoloring and/or dry sanitization systems for each of the “colored” cotton streams, here, the duplication of known recycling processes for each color is prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, for the purposes of providing clean recycled fiber for each stream.
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the process of Herchl/Titcomb to further include separate by textile type, color, and blend, as suggested by Han, in order to provide production efficiency depending on the type of fiber.
Re claim 14, Regarding “a storage configured for storing individual fabric streams in individual units, the textile recycling system further comprising a duct system including a plurality of lengths of ducts, each length of duct extending between an individual fabric unit in the storage and one or more of each subsystem of the individualized treatment processes”, Han further discloses “put into appointed storage area turnover case” (Step 5.1.1) (regarding “a duct system”, the use of an enclosing “duct” or housing is prima facie obvious to prevent contamination and/or pollution).
Re claim 15, Regarding “wherein the recycled fibers have a length of about 1 to about 2 in”, the mere optimization or selection of fiber length is prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art depending on the desired recycled application. (See also Han “length of each cut is about 45 mm”).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 16-18 are allowed. The prior art of record does not teach, suggest or motivate the combination of wherein the individualized treatment process includes one or more of the following subsystems: a decoloring system for cotton; a dry sanitization system for cotton; a decoloring system for polyester/cotton blends; a fiber separation system for polyester/cotton blends; and a decoloring system for polyester; a duct system including a plurality of lengths of ducts, each length of duct extending between an individual fabric unit in the storage and one or more of each subsystem of the individualized treatment processes or between two subsystems of the individualized treatment processes, wherein each length of duct includes a damper; a controller in communication with the sorting module, the one or more subsystems of the one or more individualized treatment processes, and the duct system; a memory in communication with the controller, wherein the memory is configured to store program instructions executable by the controller, wherein, in response to executing the program instructions, the controller is configured to: receive data indicating an amount of individual fabric streams in individual fabric units of the storage from the sorting module; identify one or more individualized treatment processes for the individual fabric streams and the associated one or more subsystems for each individualized treatment process; modify settings of the one or more subsystems for each individualized treatment process based on the data of the individual fabric streams from the sorting module; operate the duct system to activate the one or more subsystems of each individualized treatment process; operate the duct system to close one or more dampers of the lengths of duct that are not part of the one or more identified individualized treatment processes; and control operation of one or more active dampers of the lengths of duct that are part of the one or more identified individualized treatment processes, in the context of claim 16.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 3/17/2026 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made further in view of Titcomb et al. (US 2024/0092991 A1).
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 KEVIN LEE whose telephone number is (571)270-7299. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30am to 6:30pm.
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KEVIN G. LEE
Examiner
Art Unit 1711
/KEVIN G LEE/Examiner, Art Unit 1711
/MICHAEL E BARR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1711
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