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 Objections
Claim 3 is objected to because of the following informalities: “(30)” should be deleted. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
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 1-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abbott et al., US Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0098490 (hereinafter referred to as Abbott) in view of Cavinaw et al., US Patent No. 10,301,235 (hereinafter referred to as Cavinaw).
Regarding claims 1-17, Abbott discloses a process for producing chemicals from waste plastic. In some embodiment it discloses converting petroleum and pyrolysis oil into styrene, the process involving the use of ethylbenzene (see Claims 1 and 17 of Abbott and Para. [0221]). Abbott discloses the processing steps including introduction of pyrolysis oil as a co-feed with a petroleum-based, fossil fuel-based, or bio-based co-feed, each at known feed rates and concentrations in the total feed, into a cracker, to produce ethylene and propylene and amounts of other products. Therefore, reciting a “primary” processing unit can be a cracker in this example, and “secondary”, “tertiary”, and “subsequent” processing units can include polymerization reactors, metathesis reactors, oligomerization reactors, and others. The term “processing unit” is also used to include reactors and other units such as distillation towers and other separating units (Para. [0080 and see Examples).
The reactor combinations wherein one of the secondary processing units is a reforming unit, the reforming unit feed can comprise circular naphtha from the refinery unit, and the reforming unit output stream can comprise circular benzene. Further to this aspect, (c) one of the tertiary processing units is an alkylation unit, the alkylation unit feed can comprise ethylene from the steam cracking unit and circular benzene from the reforming unit, and the alkylation unit output stream can comprise circular ethylene. Still further to this aspect, (d) one of the quaternary processing units is a dehydrogenation unit, the alkylation unit feed can comprise circular ethylbenzene from the alkylation unit, and the dehydrogenation unit output stream can comprise circular styrene. Yet further to this aspect, (e) one of the quinary processing units is a polymerization unit, the polymerization unit feed can comprise circular styrene from the dehydration unit, and the polymerization unit output stream can comprise circular polystyrene (Para. [0221]).
Abbott discloses all the limitations discussed above but does not specifically disclose the catalyst in process step c) of claim 1.
Cavinaw discloses systems and methods for recycling waste plastics are provided, including a system for recovering styrene monomer from waste polystyrene. The system includes a mixing, heating and compacting apparatus to receive a supply of waste polystyrene and to output a densified polystyrene containing melt; a pyrolysis reactor configured to receive the densified polystyrene containing melt and a supply of recycled oligomers, pyrolyze the densified polystyrene containing melt and the recycled oligomers, and output a hydrocarbon gas stream and a solids residue stream; a quenching apparatus configured to receive the hydrocarbon gas stream output from the pyrolysis reactor and condense out oligomers for routing upstream to the pyrolysis reactor to be combined as the supply of recycled oligomers with the densified polystyrene containing melt, and to discharge an altered hydrocarbon gas stream for further processing (see Abstract). In addition, downstream processing may be provided in some embodiments to purify the product streams discussed herein or fractionate said streams into specified hydrocarbon cuts. Process units for this purpose may include, but are not limited to, distillation, solvent extraction, adsorption, and catalyst treatment units (Col. 6/L. 41-46). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to use the catalyst treatment units of Cavinaw in the processing steps of Abbott as it is combination of prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to VISHAL V VASISTH whose telephone number is (571)270-3716. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00-4:30 and 7:00-10:00p.
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/VISHAL V VASISTH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1771
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