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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. JP2020-201822, filed on 12/02/2020.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a mental process and a mathematical concept without significantly more.
The claim(s) recite(s) a control device that determines a specific concentration of a raw material according to a magnitude of a current flowing in an electrolytic bath. Determining a concentration from a current magnitude is an evaluation of information that can be practically performed in the human mind or with pen and paper, and is a mathematical relationship between current and concentration. Dependent claims 2-6 recite further evaluations in the same groupings, including determining a lower-limit concentration based on the magnitude of the current, selecting a storage that stores a catholyte having a concentration equal to or greater than that lower limit and closest to that lower limit, determining the specific concentration based on a decrease amount of concentration in addition to the current, and determining a blended concentration from first and second stored catholytes.
To the extent the magnitude of the current is provided to the control device as a measurement or other input, including by a transient signal, that is mere gathering of information to be evaluated and does not take the determining step outside the mental-process or mathematical concept groupings.
The recitation that the control device controls a catholyte supply device so as to supply to a cathode chamber the catholyte having the determined concentration is not part of the abstract idea. It is an additional element. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, claims 1-6 are directed to a control device, not to an organic compound producing system. Recitation of an organic compound producing system including an electrolytic bath and a catholyte supply device, and the descriptions of the cathode chamber, cathode electrode, electrolysis, storages, and supply device, identify the intended use. Those system elements are not additional elements of the claimed control device. "Controls the catholyte supply device so as to supply ... " means the control device is configured to output a control action that, if a suitable supply device is connected, causes supply of catholyte of the determined concentration. Present attachment and present operation are not required.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the only additional element in the claimed control device is a generic controller configured to output that supply command after the concentration is determined. That is mere instructions to apply the exception on a generic control device, generally linking the exception to the technological field of electrolysis, and insignificant extra-solution activity of sending the result of the evaluation to a supply device. No particular controller architecture is recited. The electrolytic bath, cathode chamber, and supply hardware are not claimed structure of the control device. The additional element, considered individually and in combination, does not impose a meaningful limitation on the abstract idea.
The claim(s) do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because a control device configured to receive a current related input, determine a concentration, and output a command to a supply device performs well-understood, routine, conventional receiving, processing, and transmitting functions. See MPEP § 2106.0S(d). No unconventional controller structure is recited. The same additional element, taken individually and as an ordered combination, does not provide an inventive concept.
Dependent claims 2-6 add only further abstract selection and blending rules and further description of the unclaimed supply train. They do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application and do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
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 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Heil (WO 2014114291 A2, machine translation).
Considering claim 1, Heil discloses a control device of an electrolytic bath and a catholyte supply device, wherein the control device determines a specific concentration of raw material according to a magnitude of a current flowing in the electrolytic bath and controls the catholyte supply device so as to supply to the cathode chamber the catholyte having the specific concentration of the raw material as determined [35].
With respect to the limitation reciting: wherein the electrolytic bath has a cathode chamber for accommodating a cathode electrode for reducing a raw material of an organic compound in a catholyte by electrolysis to generate the organic compound, wherein the catholyte supply device is capable of supplying any catholyte selected from a plurality of the catholytes having different concentrations of the raw material to the cathode chamber, the claim is directed to a control device, not to an organic compound producing system. Recitation of an organic compound producing system including an electrolytic bath and a catholyte supply device, and the descriptions of the cathode chamber, cathode electrode, electrolysis, storages, and supply device, identify the intended use.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Wojciech Haske whose telephone number is (571)272-5666. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9:30 am - 6:00 pm.
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/WOJCIECH HASKE/ Examiner, Art Unit 1794
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