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 .
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(s) 1-2, 7-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hanhiniemi (WO2025032458) in view of Saville (US4685963) in view of Wang (US20250042812) and in further view of Bai et al (US2016/158767).
Referring to claim 1. Hanhiniemi discloses a “Comminution and Ore Processing”. See Figs. 1-3 and respective portions of the specification. Hanhiniemi further discloses a mineral processing system comprising one or more crushers configured to crush ore (82, 84, 90, Fig. 3); a hydrocyclone (48) configured to receive and process to divide the feed into a first feed portion and a second feed portion, wherein the feed is a mixture of crushed ore and water; a plurality of spiral circuits (rougher, cleaner, and scavenger stage 74) and further discloses a coarse tailings processing facility (44). Hanhiniemi does not disclose spiral circuits processing the second feed portion, the concentrate comprising copper, the tailings comprising basalt, or first processing components to process the tailings to form a supplementary cementitious material. Saville discloses a “Process For The Extraction of Platinum Group Metals”. See Figs. 1-6 and respective portions of the specification. Saville further discloses a mineral processing system employing a plurality of spiral circuits comprising a rougher (23/48), one or more cleaner spirals (24/49), and a scavenger spiral (26/50) configured to process an ore slurry fraction and divide it into a concentrate and tailings (See at least Figs. 3, 5), wherein the rougher spiral produces concentrate directed to the cleaner spiral, and tailings directed to the scavenger spiral, and further discloses a hydrocyclone for desliming ore slurry prior to downstream processing. Thus, Saville discloses a plurality of spiral circuits configured to process an ore feed and divide it into a concentrate and tailings through successive stages. Wang discloses a “Pre and Post-Treatment Methods for producing supplementary cementitious material”. See Figs. 1-2 and respective portions of the specification. Wang further discloses a process for producing supplementary cementitious materials from industrial mineral waste and further discloses that mine tailings comprising basalt are used as a feedstock for cementitious material production (See Sect. 0021, 0062, 0074-0075). Bai et al (herein “Bai”) discloses a “Chalcopyrite Ore Beneficiation Process and Method”. See Fig. 1 and respective portions of the specification. Bai further discloses a process in which crushed copper ore is subjected to classification, rougher floatation, scavenger floatation, and cleaner floatation yielding a copper concentrate and wherein the concentrate product is processed through successive stages of rougher, cleaner and scavenger mineral beneficiation circuits applied to chalcopyrite ore comprises copper (See Sects. 0012, 0017). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Hanhiniemi to substitute spiral circuits as taught by Saville for the coarse particle flotation step (recognized mineral separation technique) and to apply this system to Chalcopyrite copper ore as taught by Bai, such that the concentrate comprises copper, and to incorporate processing components configured to convert the resulting basalt-bearing tailings to supplementary cementitious material, as taught by Wang, which would provide value by reducing tailings disposal costs and allowing for the recovery of commercial value from mineral processing byproducts.
Referring to claim 2. Hanhiniemi in view of Saville, Wang and Bai disclose the system as set forth above and applied to claim 1. Hanhiniemi does not explicitly disclose wherein the one or more first process components is further configured to process the first feed portion to form the supplementary cementitious materials (SCM). However, Hanhiniemi does disclose wherein the hydrocyclone overflow comprises fine ore particles including basalt fines. Wang discloses that fine-grained tailings and ground mafic materials including basalt constitute recognized cementitious materials (See Sect. 0074). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Hanhiniemi to include the teachings of Wang and processing both the overflow fine fraction and the underflow tailings through the same process as it would allow for finer particles to be used which is preferred for SCM production as it results in shorter setting times and higher early strength in the resulting product.
Referring to claim 7. Hanhiniemi in view of Saville, Wang and Bai disclose the system as set forth above and applied to claim 1. Hanhiniemi discloses wherein the first feed portion has a third material size in a range of 30-40 microns. More specifically, Hanhiniemi discloses fine ore particles having a Pso of less than 250 um. Wang discloses that basalt is present in mine tailings as a recognized SCM mineral component (Sect. 0074) and that the feedstock is preferably ground to a mean particle size diameter no larger than 1000 micrometers (Sect. 0048). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Wang into Hanhiniemi wherein mine tailings/basalt were included as feed portion and further the selection of 30-40 micro size for the overflow fraction represents routine optimization of a result-effective variable within the disclosed processing range and it is understood that finer particles are selected for lower setting times and high early strength in products.
Referring to claim 8. Hanhiniemi in view of Saville, Wang and Bai disclose the system as set forth above and applied to claim 1. Hanhiniemi does not disclose a spiral circuit comprise a rougher, a cleaner, a recleaner, and a scavenger. Saville discloses a spiral gravity circuit comprising a rougher (23/48), cleaner (24/49) and a scavenger spiral (26/50) (See Figs. 3, 5). It should be noted that adding a recleaner stage is the mere duplication of the existing cleaner stage to achieve concentrate purity improvement. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings and spiral circuit architecture of Saville into the system of Hanhiniemi as would result in an improvement in separating mineral concentrates from gangue using gravity and allow for the feed to be divided into a concentrate and tailings.
Referring to claims 9-10. Hanhiniemi in view of Saville, Wang and Bai disclose the system as set forth above and applied to claim 1.Hanhiniemi doesn’t disclose wherein the rougher comprises a rougher inlet receiving a second feed from the hydrocyclone, a first rougher outlet to the scavenger, and a second rougher outlet to the cleaner or wherein the cleaner comprise a cleaner inlet configured to receive rougher concentrate from the rougher, a first cleaner outlet to the recleaner and a second cleaner outlet to the scavenger. Saville discloses the rougher spiral (23) receives ore feed, outputs concentrate to the cleaner spiral (24) and tailings to the scavenger spiral (26) and that the cleaner produces a concentrate output and a tailings output routed to the scavenger (Fig. 3). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the spiral circuit architecture of Saville into the system of Hanhiniemi as this is the most straightforward path to forward the steam through progressively cleaner stages to upgrade grade, wile tailings stream are routed to the scavenger to recover residual values and the hydrocyclone feeds the rougher.
Referring to claims 11-12. Hanhiniemi in view of Saville, Wang and Bai disclose the system as set forth above and applied to claim 1. Hanhiniemi doesn’t disclose a recleaner inlet, a first recleaner outlet, and a second recleaner outlet, wherein the recleaner outlet is configured to receive the cleaner concentrate from the cleaner, wherein the first recleaner outlet is configured to output the concentrate and wherein the recleaner outlet is configured to output the concentrate. Saville discloses a rougher, cleaner, and scavenger. As discussed in claim 8, the recleaner operates identically to the cleaner with its inlet receiving the upstream cleaner concentrate and its outlets routing final concentrate and middling’s tailings to the scavenger. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Saville and additional cleaner that served as a recleaner to further help refine and purify the product stream.
Referring to claims 13-14. Hanhiniemi in view of Saville, Wang and Bai disclose the system as set forth above and applied to claim 1. Hanhiniemi doesn’t disclose wherein the scavenger comprises a scavenger inlet, a first scavenger outlet and a second scavenger outlet and wherein the second scavenger outlet is configured to output scavenger concentrate to the cleaner. Saville discloses a scavenger spiral stage (26) receiving rougher and cleaner tails and wherein the scavenger tailings are the final waste stream, and wherein the scavenger concentrate is recycled for further processing. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Saville into the system of Hanhiniemi as routing scavenger concentrate to the cleaner rather than the rougher isa known design variation representing a result-effective optimization of processing efficiency and directing partially upgraded material to the cleaner stage reduces circuit recirculating load and improves grade recovery.
Referring to claim 15. Hanhiniemi in view of Saville, Wang and Bai disclose the system as set forth above and applied to claim 1. Hanhiniemi discloses wherein one or more crushers comprises a vertical crusher (46).
Referring to claim 16. Hanhiniemi in view of Saville, Wang and Bai disclose the system as set forth above and applied to claim 1. Hanhiniemi doesn’t explicitly disclose wherein the one or more crushers comprises a ball mill or roll mill. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate a roll mill or ball mill as the means for the crushers as they are able to produce small output sizes in the preferred range for SCM.
Referring to claim 17. Hanhiniemi in view of Saville, Wang and Bai disclose the system as set forth above and applied to claim 1. Hanhiniemi discloses one or more second processing components configured to process the concentrate to purify the concentrate. More specifically, Hanhiniemi discloses a downstream mineral recovery state comprising chemical addition, rougher, cleaner, and scavenger stages that receive the concentrate and produce a final purified concentrate (Pg. 7, Fig. 2).
Claim(s) 3-6, 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hanhiniemi (WO2025032458) in view of Saville (US4685963) in view of Wang (US20250042812) in view of Bai et al (US2016/158767) and further view of Burke (US4066471).
Referring to claims 3-5. Hanhiniemi in view of Saville, Wang and Bai disclose the system as set forth above and applied to claim 1. Hanhiniemi doesn’t explicitly disclose wherein the one or more first processing components comprises a grinder configure to grind the tailings from a first particle size to a second particle size to form SCM or wherein the second particle size is in a range of 10 microns to 40 microns, or wherein the second particle size is 10 microns. Burke discloses a “Constructional Cement”. See respective portions of the specification. Burke further discloses that basalt and other basic rocks are ground in ball or tube mills to form constructional cements and that routinely comprise basic materials that are ground to a fineness of less than 15 microns (See at least Col. 7 L. 25-40). Thus, Burke teaches that grinding basalt from an initial particle size to a target fine particle size in a grinder is a necessary step for converting basalt to a cementitious material. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate a grinder as taught by Burke into the tailings processing pathway such that materials could be grinded to be sized (in a range from 10 to 40 microns, preferably 10 microns) for conversion to cementitious materials.
Referring to claim 6. Hanhiniemi in view of Saville, Wang and Bai disclose the system as set forth above and applied to claim 1. Hanhiniemi doesn’t disclose wherein the one or more first processing components is further configured to perform calcining and add mineralizers to the tailings. Burke discloses calcination is a known processing stem for producing cementitious compositions from silicate mineral materials, and teaches that a cementitious composition is produced by calcining in rotary kilns (See at least Col. 2 L. 48-60). Wang further discloses the addition of alkaline activators functioning as mineralizers (sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, sodium silicate, and potassium silicate) to enhance the cementitious reactivity of processed mineral feedstocks including basalt-bearing min tailings (See Sect. 0076). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply calcining and mineralizer addition to the tailings processing pathway, as this would enhance the pozzolanic reactivity of silicate minerals and yield improvements in SCM.
Referring to claims 18-19. Hanhiniemi in view of Saville, Wang and Bai disclose the system as set forth above and applied to claim 1. With respect to claims 18-19, the method described in these claims would inherently result from the combination as advanced above and detailed in claim 1.
Referring to claim 20. Hanhiniemi in view of Saville, Wang and Bai disclose the system as set forth above and applied to claim 1. Hanhiniemi does not disclose a grinder configured to grind tailings from a first particle size to a second particle size. Hanhiniemi as disclosed in the claim 1 rejection discloses a crusher, hydrocyclone, and tailings output. Saville discloses the spiral circuits (cleaner, rougher, scavenger), while Bai teaches the copper concentrate composition and Wang teaches conversion of basalt mine tailings to SCM, Burke discloses grinding Basalt toa particle size of less than 15 microns. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate these teachings so that the system was capable of using mineral components and configured to convert the resulting basalt-bearing tailings to supplementary cementitious material, as taught by Wang, which would provide value by reducing tailings disposal costs and allowing for the recovery of commercial value from mineral processing byproducts and wherein materials were grinded down to a fine particle size that was preferred as taught by Burke for conversion to cementitious materials.
Conclusion
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/TERRELL H MATTHEWS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3653
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