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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after allowance or after an Office action under Ex Parte Quayle, 25 USPQ 74, 453 O.G. 213 (Comm'r Pat. 1935). Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, prosecution in this application has been reopened pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.
The previous indication of allowability has been withdrawn and the claims now stand rejected as follows-
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
The following is a quotation of the second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Regarding these claims, the language “wherein no shredding is performed on the fluffed solid waste stream” (claim 1) appears in conflict with the specification and thus renders the claims indefinite. That is, Applicant’s specification teaches a fluffing element that is labeled as a cutting table and uses knife/blade configurations similar to a shredder (Cf. fig. 5 and 6; para.25 teaching that cutting table and “knife/blade configurations “produce properly sized materials which are more accurately characterized as fluffed rather than shred”). Thus, it is inaccurate to claim that “no shredding is performed” as some degree of cutting shredding takes place due to the mere use of a cutting table with rotating blade/knife configurations.
Examiner requests clarification and recommends amending the claims with language that clearly sets forth the claimed invention. In the interim, and in the interests of compact prosecution, the claims have been interpreted as set forth below.
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 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.
Claims 1-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Torriere (US 2020/0171547) in view of Schultz (US 2020/0129989), Sommer, Jr. et al. (“Sommer”)(US 4,533,054) and legal precedent.
Torriere (fig. 1-4) teaches a process for sorting and recovering materials from a mixed solid waste stream, the process comprising:
(re: certain elements of claim 1) fluffing the solid waste stream, wherein the fluffed solid waste stream is not susceptible to tangling in downstream equipment (fig. 1 showing input/tipping floor 110 with front end loader 115 and materials feeder 120; para. 21 teaching that waste stream is deposited on tipping floor 110 and fluffed by front end loader, wherein larger bulky contaminants can be hand sorted or removed by a material handler);
after fluffing, screening the solid waste stream in a primary screener to remove materials having a size of 12″ or larger from the solid waste stream (130; para. 23-26);
screening the solid waste stream in a secondary screener (150) and removing glass fines from the solid waste stream, resulting in a solid waste stream comprising heavier weight materials, medium weight materials and lighter weight materials (para. 26-27);
passing the solid waste stream through a first air separator (160) and removing the heavier weight materials from the solid waste stream (para. 29-30);
passing the solid waste stream through a second air separator and removing the medium weight materials from the solid waste stream, wherein the medium weight materials comprise one or more of higher density plastics, ferrous/tin cans, and mixed paper, such that the solid waste stream substantially comprises lighter weight materials, wherein the lighter weight materials comprise contaminants and other materials (fig. 1, 2 near 160; para. 29-30 teaching a series of air separators using air blowers and rotating drums to split the material waste stream into multiple streams having different densities);
passing the solid waste stream through a third air separator and contacting the solid waste stream with an air stream to isolate the contaminants from the other materials (Id.);
recombining the medium weight materials and the contaminants from the lighter weight materials to produce a recombined solid waste stream (fig. 2 near 170; para. 30-31);
introducing the recombined solid waste stream into a mechanical separator (170) and separating the recombined solid waste stream into fines materials, containers materials comprising bottles and cans, and an overs stream comprising paper materials, cardboard and plastics materials (para. 33); and
dividing the overs stream into a plurality of overs streams and passing each of the plurality of over streams though a series of optical sorters to remove cardboard and plastics materials (fig. 2 near 200, 210; para. 7, 33,34);
(re: claim 2) wherein the containers materials are passed sequentially through a first optical sorter to remove PET materials and a second optical sorter to separate HDEP and PP materials from LDPE film materials, and wherein the LDPE film materials are passed through a third optical sorter for quality control (fig. 4; para. 6, 42-46);
(re: claim 3) wherein the recombined solid waste stream is divided into a plurality of recombined solid waste streams, and wherein each of the plurality of recombined solid waste streams is introduced into a mechanical separator (para. 6, 7);
(re: claim 4) wherein the materials removed from the solid waste stream in the primary screener comprise corrugated cardboard and one or more of plastic film, rigid plastics and bulky metals, and wherein said removed materials are delivered to a sorting station wherein the corrugated cardboard is separated from the other materials (para. 23).
Torriere as set forth above teaches all that is claimed except for expressly teaching
(re: certain elements of claim 1) wherein the fluffing is performed in a fluffer comprising a cutting table configured to produce materials with a size of 20" or larger,
and wherein the fluffing is not performed on a tipping floor using a front end loader and materials feeder, and
said fluffed solid waste stream having materials with a size of 20″ or larger.
Here, it is noted that Torriere already teaches that the initial screening after fluffing can contain 12-inch plus materials and is merely silent on the specific range of material sizes (para. 21-23 teaching that larger bulky material can be removed from tipping floor but that 12-inch plus materials may remain in waste stream).
Schultz further teaches that it is well-known in the waste sorting arts to design flexible systems that handle a range of material sizes—including 20” or larger—by integrating a pre-sort unit that analyzes waste streams and configures the sorting process to the material sizes therein (para. 58-61 teaching pre-sort analyzer and configuring system to handle range of waste streams, wherein additional screening/separating/shredding steps can be adapted to handle waste streams with different material sizes).
Sommer teaches that it is well-known in the waste recycling arts to use knife-like elements to prepare waste, thus making subsequent separation processes more efficient (fig. 1, 2 near 24, 26 and col. 1, ln. 28-col. 2, ln. 55 teaching that net effect of action of knife/blade elements is the “liberation, homogenization and fluffing of the incoming waste”).
Indeed, the claimed features relating to the method of fluffing, the material sizes remaining in the waste stream and the type of waste streams produced at each sorting stage can be regarded as common design parameters/operating variables controlled by the design incentives and/or economic considerations involved in this type of subject matter. This is especially applicable in the waste sorting arts as the type of waste material to be sorted controls variations in the specific device dimensions, features and/or sorting steps. Moreover, legal precedent teaches that variations in these type of common design parameters/operating variables are obvious and are the mere optimization of result-effective variables that would be known to one with ordinary skill in the art. See MPEP 2144.05 I.II (teaching ample motivation to optimize or modify result-effective variables based on “design need(s)” or “market demand”); see also MPEP 2144.04.IV (teaching that changes in size, proportion or shape of known elements are obvious); 2144.04.V.D. and VI (teaching that the mere rearrangement or duplication of known elements, or making known elements adjustable, is not a patentable advance).
It would thus be obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify the base reference with these prior art teachings—with a reasonable expectation of success—to arrive at the claimed invention. The rationale for this obviousness determination can be found in legal precedent as described above. Further, the prior art discussed and cited demonstrates the level of sophistication of one with ordinary skill in the art and that these modifications are predictable variations that would be within this skill level. Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the invention of Torriere for the reasons set forth above.
Conclusion
Any references not explicitly discussed but made of record during the prosecution of the instant application are considered helpful in understanding and establishing the state of the prior art and are thus relevant to the prosecution of the instant application.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH C RODRIGUEZ whose telephone number is 571-272-3692 (M-F, 9 am – 6 pm, PST). The Supervisory Examiner is MICHAEL MCCULLOUGH, 571-272-7805. The Official fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Alternatively, to contact the examiner, send an E-mail communication to Joseph.Rodriguez@uspto.gov. Such E-mail communication should be in accordance with provisions of the MPEP (see e.g., 502.03 & 713.04; see also Patent Internet Usage Policy Article 5). E-mail communication must begin with a statement authorizing the E-mail communication and acknowledging that such communication is not secure and may be made of record. Please note that any communications with regards to the merits of an application will be made of record. A suggested format for such authorization is as follows: "Recognizing that Internet communications are not secure, I hereby authorize the USPTO to communicate with me concerning any subject matter of this application by electronic mail. I understand that a copy of these communications will be made of record in the application file”.
Information regarding the status of an application may also be obtained from the Patent Center: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/
/JOSEPH C RODRIGUEZ/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3655
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August 29, 2026
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