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
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.
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.
Claims 1-3 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Endo et al. JP 2019-090614 A (hereafter Endo), prior art of record as indicted on the IDS filed 2 December 2024, in view of Graf US Pat 5,891,307 (hereafter Graf).
As to claim 1: Endo teaches an underwater bubble detecting method for detecting gas bubbles in water (see ¶ 21 of the included English translation of Endo) and gas bubbles by measuring an intensity of ultrasonic waves received by a reception unit (22a, 22b; see ¶ 29).
Endo does not explicitly teach:
detecting gas bubbles in water containing fibrous materials.
However, Graf teaches detection of gas bubbles in water containing fibrous materials (see col. 3, lines 48-67 and col. 4, lines 1-5).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Endo’s method such that detecting gas bubbles in water includes detecting gas bubbles in water containing fibrous materials because ultrasound measurement of a liquid containing fibrous materials is an art recognized means of achieving the useful and predictable result of determining percentages of multiphase fluids such as suggested in Graf col. 1, lines 56-65 and accordingly would serve to improve the sensing accuracy of determining components in a flow while also not requiring direct mechanical measurement of said flow but measuring in a non-contact manner; i.e. by the use of ultrasonic interrogation of the flow and thus can be applied to flows which are not easily accessible.
As to claim 2: Endo as modified by Graf teaches the underwater bubble detecting method according to claim 1, wherein an oscillation frequency of the ultrasonic waves is 0.5 MHz or more (see Graf col. 4, lines 1-5).
As to claim 3: Endo as modified by Graf teaches the underwater bubble detecting method according to claim 1, wherein the water containing fibrous materials (see Graf col. 3, lines 48-67 and col. 4, lines 1-5) and gas bubbles (see ¶ 21 of Endo) is flowing water and an intensity of ultrasonic waves is monitored continuously and periodically (see ¶ 32 of Endo).
As to claim 5: Endo as modified by Graf teaches the underwater bubble detecting method according to claim 1, wherein the water containing fibrous materials (see Graf col. 3, lines 48-67 and col. 4, lines 1-5) and gas bubbles (see Endo ¶ 21) is an aqueous slurry in a paper manufacturing process (see Endo ¶ 21 and Graf col. 2, lines 32-41).
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Endo et al. JP 2019-090614 A (hereafter Endo), prior art of record as indicted on the IDS filed 2 December 2024, in view of Graf US Pat 5,891,307 (hereafter Graf) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Gysling US PG-PUB 2009/0249887 A1 (hereafter Gysling).
As to claim 6: Endo as modified by Graf teaches all of the limitations of the claimed invention as described above regarding claim 1, including a water containing fibrous materials (see Graf col. 3, lines 48-67 and col. 4, lines 1-5) and gas bubbles (see ¶ 21 of Endo) with ultrasonic waves (see Graf. col. 4, lines 1-5) but does not explicitly teach:
wherein a pressure of the water containing fibrous materials and gas bubbles at a measurement point of an intensity of ultrasonic waves is less than 0.15 MPa.
However, Gysling teaches a pressure of a water containing fibrous materials and gas bubbles (see ¶ 51) at a measurement point of an intensity of ultrasonic waves is less than 0.15 MPa (see ¶ 52 regarding the measured intensity point of the waves being 1 atm to 4 atm; i.e. 0.1013 MPa to 0.4053 MPa).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify Endo such that a pressure of the water containing fibrous materials and gas bubbles at a measurement point of an intensity of ultrasonic waves is less than 0.15 MPa because this operating pressure is an art recognized means of interrogating an entrained air mixture/slurry with ultrasonic waves for the purpose of determining physical properties therefrom in a non-contacting manner and is particularly applied in the pulp and paper industry. Accordingly, such a pressure would be advantageous to allow the method of Endo to determine properties from any slurries containing such pulp and/or paper products for the purpose of determining composition or other properties therefrom as suggested in ¶ 53 of Gysling.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 and 7-10 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
As to claim 4: The prior art of record does not disclose or render obvious to the skilled artisan the underwater bubble detecting method wherein the water containing fibrous materials and gas bubbles has a residue fraction of 100 mg/L or more on a sieve having an opening of 20 μm, when considered in combination with the limitations of of parent claim 1.
As to claim 7: The prior art of record does not disclose or render obvious to the skilled artisan a pressure of the water containing fibrous materials and gas bubbles at a measurement point of an intensity of ultrasonic waves is 0.9 to 1.1 times of a pressure at a target point for monitoring underwater gas bubbles upstream of the measurement point, when considered in combination with the limitations of parent claims 1 and 3.
As to claim 8: The prior art of record does not disclose or render obvious to the skilled artisan the underwater bubble detecting method wherein an ultrasonic attenuation rate is expressed by the following expression is an index of an amount of gas bubbles: Ultrasonic Attenuation Rate = (R0 - R1)/R0 x 100 wherein R0 is an ultrasonic reception intensity measured for water free of gas bubbles and (emphasis added) R1 is an ultrasonic reception intensity for water containing fibrous materials and gas bubbles, when considered in combination with the limitations of parent claim 1.
In particular, while it is known from the prior art (see Kersey et al. US PG-PUB 2004/0199340 A1 ¶ 102) that the attenuation of ultrasonic signals between ultrasonic transmission and reception devices varies as a function of substances in a flow between said devices, the prior art of record is silent regarding the above noted limitation of claim 8 when considered with the limitations of parent claim 1 and there does not appear to be any modification of Endo nor the other cited prior art of record that renders obvious the features of the instant claim.
As to claim 9: The prior art of record does not disclose or render obvious to the skilled artisan a degassing agent adding method using the underwater bubble detecting method according to claim 1, wherein an amount of a degassing agent to be added to the water containing fibrous materials and gas bubbles is controlled depending on an intensity of ultrasonic waves received, when considered in combination with the limitations of parent claim 1.
As to claim 10: The claim depends directly from claim 8 and accordingly is also objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims at least by virtue of its dependency upon a claim that is itself objected to as containing allowable subject matter for the above noted reasons but not repeated herein for brevity.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN M ROYSTON whose telephone number is (571)270-7215. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-4:30 E.S.T..
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/JOHN M ROYSTON/Examiner, Art Unit 2855
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