Snow,
JBI would be infringing every single one of the numerous patents cited by the patent examiners as being "prior art".
EVERY SINGLE claim on JBI's patent application was rejected for obviousness, because every concept in every claim had previously been patented by somebody else. The patent examiners cited exactly which patents already covered what Bordynuik was trying to claim. This is all public information now, and you can see for yourself.
You really should do this for yourself. If you can't understand what is written there, it would be worth your while buying 30 minutes of a patent attorney's time, and have them explain the meaning and consequences of what is written in the office action. Surely spending a couple hundred bucks to get an expert's opinion is money well spent for anyone who has a significant investment in JBI.
Do I think PIPE investors knew about this?
Well, either they did, or they didn't. It simply doesn't matter either way, because it has absolutely no effect on the consequences. (However, I can at least say that if they did know about it, then that would be strong evidence that one should not rely on the PIPE investors' judgement when making their own investment decisions).
Only the consequences of JBI having all their claims rejected matter: If JBI is using the processes and devices disclosed in their patent application to turn plastic into oil, then they are infringing the very patents that were cited against them as being prior art.
Will JBI address this in some decisive way, that actually makes sense to those intelligent enough to understand the seriousness of this issue? Possible answers:
- If they are a legitimate company, truly trying to build a profitable P2O business, they will do so immediately.
- If they have no intention of doing anything but stealing investors' money, they'll either ignore it, or give some BS answer to satisfy those who don't think critically about these things.
- If they are just dumb and dishonest, they will just infringe the other patents, gambling on the hope that nobody will bother suing them until they at least have enough cash to make it worthwhile being sued, which isn't likely to happen anytime soon.