Short answer is no. Long answer is possible based on novelty and inventive step. It sounds like you need to spend $500-$3k and ask a patent agent or attorney to review your technology and your prior art search.
If you don't want to shell out the cash, here's what you can do yourself for free:
Information gathering phase:
- Read the specification carefully. List out each embodiment with all elements, and all combinations.
- Go on USPTO PAIR and review the prosecution history (click on Image File Wrapper). You need to read the rejections and understand why the technology was rejected.
- Do another prior art search. It sounds highly unlikely that 20 years have gone by and there is no literature whatsoever on your topic. News articles, academic journals, books, etc...something exists.
- list out the elements of your invention in its preferred embodiment. What are the key features to make your invention enabling?
Analysis phase:
Take each of your key features/elements and try to map a product, product feature, patent element, or prosecution history argument to your elements.
Pivot:
If you found that in the analysis phase, every feature of your preferred embodiment was "anticipated", aka someone else thought of it, then you can't patent it. If you found out through the file history review + prior art search that perhaps elements A+B+C were unpatentable because they were too broad, and that your idea includes element D, then you can patent it as A+B+C+D.
There's really not short answer to this question. Your question is too broad to answer in detail, so you'll have to do the legwork yourself and come to a reasonable conclusion if its worth your time to even pursue such a patent.
