I am informing you kindly,  referring to the ISR mailed on 11 December 2012, the  Applicant decided to amend the claims according to art. 19 of the PCT.  

The International Bureau of WIPO  34, Chemin des Colombettes  1211Geneva 20 

Switzerland   

Re: PCT/PL2011/000017 – amendment basing on art. 19 of the PCT   

I am informing you kindly,  referring to the ISR mailed on 11 December 2012, the  Applicant decided to amend the claims according to art. 19 of the PCT.  

The amendments comprise following corrections: 

1. Regarding  the  prior  art  mentioned  in  the  IRS  the  Applicant  decided  to  move  a  technical  feature  concerning  the  feeding  of  a  flow  –  reversal  device    with  an  additional  portion  of  a  fuel    from  a  distinctive  part  and  to  a  non‐distinctive  part  of  claim 1 and a distinctive part of claim  1 is rebuilt by précising technical conditions for  maintaining a stable heat recovery and keeping the symmetric temperature profile in  the flow‐reversal device. 

2. Claim 2 is cancelled since a technical feature claimed with is known from the prior art.  

3. In claims 3 and claim 8 the reference to an original claim 2 is cancelled (since claim 2  is cancelled); 

4. In  claim  9  the  wording  “…of  the  combustion  section(I)..”  is  added  for  better  understanding  and  for  avoiding  the  unambiguousness  of  a  formulation;  also  a  reference (T

) is added .  

5. In  claim  13,  the  second  part  of  an  original  distinctive  part,  concerning  “….the  additional  supply  of  highly  concentrated  mixture…”  is  cancelled  and  the  wording 

“symmetrically located” is added, which is in a conformity with an original drawing.. 

We are sending you enclosed :  1. Amended version of the claims  

2. Original version of the claims with amendments marked in colour. 

Any  amendments  in  the  original  text  of  the  claims  are  marked  on  the  enclosed  print: 

‐ additions – are marked in a blue colour  

‐ cancellations are marked with a double line.  

The Applicant also decided to present below his informal comments to the Written Opinion of the International Searching Authority.

General remark:

In the prior art there are multiple patens for regenerative thermal or catalytic reversed flow reactors, especially oxidizers. The general idea of this solution was for the first time patented by Cottrell in 1938 (US Patent No 2,121,733,) and further inventions in this area generally relate to numerous details of this technology only, not the idea itself. Therefore if the idea of patented solution is similar to the solution in the prior art, but many new technical features are claimed, in any case the argument of a lack of novelty shouldn’t be raised against the application WO 2012/148294 A2. .

Detailed remarks (Reference to numbers of documents cited in PCT International Search Report):

1) [D1] Ref. PCT WO 02/48814 A1:

 [D1] Page 2 line 13 – page 3 line 21

Stabilization the quantity of energy given off in the heat recovery apparatus by supplying additional fuel is really not new because it is disclosed in the claim 2 in cited document [D1]. Therefore this technical feature was moved in our application WO 2012/148294 A2 from a distinctive part of claim 1 to a non- distinctive part thereof and also the original claim 2 was cancelled. Moreover, a part of the distinctive part of claim 13 relating to additional fuel supply is removed, too.

 [D1] Page 6 line 2 – page 7 line 3

This excerpt contains general description how regenerative oxidizers, known

from many patents, work but particularly it doesn’t coincides with any claim of

our application WO 2012/148294 A2 . Thus the Applicant can not accept this

argument as an evidence for a lack of novelty.

 [D1] Page 12 line 4 – page 15 line 19

This part of description of [D1] and related with it claim 3 really disclose the same problem of coping with a thermal asymmetry in oxidizers. But according to [D1] the problem is solved using a control algorithm quite different from proposed in our application WO 2012/148294 A2. The algorithm according to application WO 2012/148294 A2 is simpler, more reliable and more general.

Therefore the Applicant can not agree with this argument of the ISA.

 [D1] Page 16 line 2 – page 17 line 4

This part of description of [D1] relates to the same question as a given above note to [D1] Page 2 line 13 – page 3 line 21 and our former formulation of the claim 1, claim 2 and claim 13. Therefore the Applicant does believe that the obstacle presented in the IRS is solved by the new formulation of the claims 1 and 13 and a cancellation of the original claim 2.

2) [D2] Ref. EP 0 337 143 A2

The whole document relates to a catalytic, not thermal combustion but nevertheless in similar device. The only coincidence with our filling is claim 2 in the cited patent. We believe that new formulation of our claims 1 and 13 and a cancellation of the claim 2 has removed that coincidence.

3) [D3] Ref. US 5 451 300

The cited document concerns a process for removal of a volatile component from liquid stream which utilizes a heat from a regenerative heat transfer reaction system to promote mass transfer in the stripper and to improve operation of the stripper itself. The only common point with our application WO 2012/148294 A2 is apparatus (regenerative reverse flow oxidizer), which is a source of the utilized heat. Only general features of operating of the two regenerative oxidizers are similar but neither in [D3]

patent US 5 451 300 nor in our application WO 2012/148294 A2 these general features are not the claimed features. Therefore, there is not any coincidence of our application WO 2012/148294 A2 with cited document [D3].

4) [D4] Ref. WO 99/57498 A1

The document [D4] cited in the search concerns a dryer emitting VOC containing

effluent with integrated regenerative heat source as the heat recovery for drying.

Generally gas stream from the regenerative VOC oxidizer to dryer is drawn in similar manner as in our patent application WO 2012/148294 A2, but this feature is not a subject of any claim in application WO 2012/148294 A2. The integrated system according to the claim 7 protects means for introducing combustible fuel into the regenerative heat source, what could really coincide with claims 1 and 2 in our application WO 2012/148294 A2. Since additional fuel supply was removed from our application WO 2012/148294 A2 the matter becomes irrelevant. The other similarities are apparent.

5) [D5] Ref. SU 1 160 201 A

The patent has only one claim which protects a general rule of heat recovery in regenerative catalytic reverse flow reactor by the so-called central gas cooling in the middle of the reactor. In Fig. 1 and also in description of the invention in [D5] as an example the heat recovery to steam production is shown. Very general meaning of document [D5] in any case does not coincide with any claim in our application WO 2012/148294 A2.

6) [D6] Ref. to US 6 832 480 B1

As in the document [D5] the only similarity of [D6] with our application WO 2012/148294

A2 is the heat recovery which is realized by the steam production in a boiler, fed with a

portion of the process gas stream diverted from a regenerative thermal oxidizer. On the other

hand the patent claims of [D6] do not coincide with any claim in the application WO

2012/148294 A2. Thus, there is no coincidence between cited [D6] document and our

application WO 2012/148294 A2.