Ex Parte HOFF et al

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jun 19, 2019

14646936 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jun. 19, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/646,936 05/22/2015
120607 7590 06/21/2019
Winstead PC (IF)
P.O. Box 131851
Dallas, TX 75313-1851
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Karl Anders HOFF
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www .uspto.gov
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
47055-Pl82WOUS 5647
EXAMINER
BERNS, DANIEL J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1736
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/21/2019 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
ifdocket@winstead.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte KARL ANDERS HOFF, THOR MEJDELL, INNA KIM,
ANDREAS GRIMS TVEDT, and EIRIK FALCK DASILVA
Appeal2018-006694
Application 14/646,936
Technology Center 1700
Before BRADLEY R. GARRIS, BEYERL YA. FRANKLIN, and
N. WHITNEY WILSON, Administrative Patent Judges.
WILSON, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
July 27, 2017 decision finally rejecting claims 1, 2, 6, and 10-15 ("Final
Act."). We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellant is the Applicant, Aker Engineering & Technology AS, who is
also identified as the real party in interest (Appeal Br. 1 ).
Appeal2018-006694
Application 14/646,936
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Appellant's disclosure relates to an absorbent for capturing carbon
dioxide (CO2) from a combustion gas (Spec. ,r 1 ). The absorbent comprises
2-amino-2-methyl-l-propanol (AMP) and one of 3-aminopropanol (AP) and
4-aminobutanol (AB) (Abstract). Independent claim 1 is representative of
the claimed invention, and is reproduced below from the Claims Appendix
to the Appeal Brief:
1. An aqueous CO2 absorbent comprising:
2-amino-2-methyl-l-propanol (AMP);
and one of:
3-aminopropanol (AP); and
4-aminobutanol (AB).
REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 2, 6, and 10-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over Mejdell2 in view of Singh. 3
DISCUSSION
Appellant limits its arguments to the rejection of claim 1, stating that
the patentability of the remaining claims on appeal is based on the
patentability of claim 1 (Br. 4). Accordingly, our analysis will focus on the
rejection of claim 1 over Mejdell in view of Singh.
2 Mejdell et al., WO 2010/037825 Al, published April 8, 2010.
3 Singh et al., "Structure and activity relationships for amine based CO2
absorbents-I," International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control I (2007),
pp. 5-10.
2
Appeal2018-006694
Application 14/646,936
The Examiner finds that Mejdell teaches COz---absorbent aqueous
mixtures of AMP and monoethanolamine (MEA) (Final Act. 4, citing Mejdell,
3: 1-26, claims 1--4). The Examiner also finds that Mejdell does not disclose
the use of either 3-aminopropanol ("AP") or 4-aminobutanol ("AB") with
AMP (id.). The Examiner finds that Singh discloses that, compared to MEA
(as used in Mejdell), both AP and AB having greater CO2 uptakes over time
(Final Act. 4, citing Singh, Table 1 ). Therefore, according to the Examiner, it
would have been obvious to modify Mejdell's absorbent by replacing MEA
with either AP or AB because Singh teaches that these have increased CO2
uptake capacity (Final Act. 4).
According to Appellant, prior art CO2 sorbents had high energy
demands and the known combinations of amines provided unpredictable CO2
capture while demonstrating oxidative degradation, corrosion, and
nitrosamine formation (Br. 5, citing Spec. ,r,r 7-17). Appellant argues that the
claimed absorbents "were far less prone to oxidative degradation than other
standard CO2 sorbents, such as monoethanolamine (MEA), or MEA
combined with AMP," and were also less prone to oxidative degradation or
nitrosamine formation (Br. 5, citing Spec. ,r,r 20-21 ).
Appellant argues that the rationale offered by the Examiner for
combining the teachings of Mejdell and Singh as set forth in the rejection is
deficient (Br. 5). In particular, Appellant contends that substituting AP or AB
into Mejdell's composition for MEA would have rendered the composition
unsuitable for its intended purpose (Br. 6). That purpose, according to
Appellant, was to focus on the selection of "appropriate concentration levels
of both AMP and MMEA/MEA" (id., citing Mejdell, 6:20-25).
3
Appeal2018-006694
Application 14/646,936
The argument is not persuasive because Mejdell explicitly states that its
objective "is to provide an improved absorbent and an improved method for
capturing of CO2 from a CO2 containing gas, where the improved absorbents
has improved characteristics compared with the prior used absorbents, such as
exemplified with the MEA reference absorbent" (Mejdell, 2:26-30). Thus, a
modification of Mejdell to improve its CO2 absorbance would not render it
unsuitable for its intended purpose.
Appellant also argues that Singh teaches away from the use of AP and
AB "by demonstrating a strong preference for the use of other compounds"
(Br. 6). According to Appellant, Singh explicitly states a preference for the
use of hexadimethylamine and hexylamine, and does not present results which
would suggest that AP or AB would have improved CO2 absorption
performance relative to MEA (Br. 6-7). In support of this argument,
Appellant points to Table 1 of Singh, which shows that MEA has a higher
absorptive capacity measured by mol CO2 per kg amine:
Table 1- Total capacity of aqueous alkanolamine base