Total BS. The US Patent and trademark Office has absolutely no power to do anything other than to reject to grant patent claims.
Anyone who has ever been part of the process knows that.
Oh, gimme a break! OF COURSE the various patent departments are NOT imposing any such thing "de jure". What the headline obviously means is that, in the absence of a patent protecting the technology, Rossi is forced to keep the "catalyst" as a trade secret, and devise some means of keeping that secret if he wants to protect his IP.