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
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
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.
Claims 1-8 recites the limitation "the inert gas" in claim 1, line 4. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
As to claim 8, the term, “the PLC” lacks antecedent basis and unclear as to what it stands for.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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, 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) 1-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 2021186852 and further in view of Hetke (US 2019/0344335).
As to claim 1, JP 852 discloses a method for treating molten aluminum comprising the steps of:
Determining hydrogen concentration in the molten aluminum
Degassing treatment to the molten metal unit the mixed amount of hydrogen gas in the molten metal is lower than a reference value smaller than the molten metal value, and then cooling the molten metal in the mold (abstract).
JP ‘852 fails to teach correlating the inert gas concentration with hydrogen concentration and adjusting the inert gas output from the degasser.
However, Hetke discloses introducing inert gas via a degasser so that the mold is free from hydrogen (par. 0005, par. 0089, and par. 0126) for the purpose of producing a high quality cast product (abstract).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to introduce inert gas as taught by Hetke into JP ‘852 in order to produce an effective cast.
As to claims 2 and 3, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to continuously or periodically monitor the hydrogen concentration in order to control how much inert gas should be introduced.
As to claims 4-6, Hetke discloses inert gas is argon and nitrogen. Also being introduced by a inert gas dispensing rotor.
As to claim 7, JP 852 in view of Hetke fail to teach introducing chlorine gas to the molten aluminum. However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to include chlorine gas in order to remove impurities.
As to claim 8, Hetke discloses a controller (612) to control inert gas level.
As to claim 9, JP 852 discloses an apparatus comprising:
A degassing station to include sensor to measure hydrogen gas (abstract).
JP 852 fails to teach a control unit to balance inert gas concentration correlated with the hydrogen concentration.
However, Hetke discloses a control unit (612) to control inert gas in order to produce a quality casting.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to a control unit to introduce inert gas as taught by Hetke into JP ‘852 in order to produce an effective cast.
As to claim 10, the degasser can maintain a constant level.
Inquiry
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/LEN TRAN/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3763
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