DETAILED ACTION
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-3 and 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Thompson et al. (US 2006/0045764 A1), hereafter Thompson.
Regarding claims 1 and 5, Thompson discloses a blow-by gas processing apparatus (Fig. 3, 300) for an internal combustion engine equipped with a supercharger [0010], comprising: an intake passage (134) in which a compressor wheel of the supercharger is disposed [0015]; a blow-by gas passage (322); and a storage chamber (350) for storing emulsion contained in blow-by gas, wherein: the blow-by gas passage includes a separation chamber (354) for separating the emulsion from the blow-by gas, an upstream passage that connects an interior of a crankcase of the internal combustion engine with the separation chamber, and a downstream passage that connects the separation chamber with the intake passage (claim 18), the separation chamber includes an upstream opening (338) to which the upstream passage is connected (Fig. 3), and a facing wall (316) facing the upstream opening, the storage chamber is located downward of the facing wall in a vertical direction, and the facing wall is continuous with a defining wall that defines the storage chamber (Fig. 3).
Regarding claim 2, Thompson discloses the blow-by gas processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a compressor housing that houses the compressor wheel has the separation chamber and the storage chamber.
Regarding claim 3, Thompson discloses the blow-by gas processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the compressor housing has a communication hole (345) that connects the separation chamber and the storage chamber with each other.
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) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thompson et al. (US 2006/0045764 A1), in view of Richardson et al. (US 2010/0089341 A1), hereafter Richardson.
Regarding claim 4, Thompson is silent to the blow-by has processing apparatus being applied to an engine that burns hydrogen as fuel. Richardson discloses an engine that uses hydrogen as fuel and teaches a method of providing blow-by gases upstream of a compressor (Fig. 2, abstract). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the compressor of Thompson in the engine of Richardson in order to further clean crankcase gases prior to reintroducing them to the engine’s intake system.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 6 is 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
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/TEUTA HOLBROOK/
Examiner
Art Unit 3747
/GEORGE C JIN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3747