DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 19, 21-24, 26-34, and 36-41 are pending. Claims 1-18, 20, 25, and 35 have been canceled.
The foreign priority application No. 20185836 filed in Finland on October 04, 2018 has been received and it is acknowledged. The application has been filed in English.
The Office Action introduces new grounds of rejection for claim 19, which includes the limitations of claim 20 which has been objected to, but allowable if written in independent form. Therefore, the Office Action is made non-final. The examiner apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 19, 22, 26, 27, and 29-34 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nakajima (JP2012-018801 A, with attached machine translation) in view of Cheng et al. (US 2017/0162907).
With regard to claims 19, 26, and 27, Nakajima teaches an electrolyte solution comprising 10wt% propylene carbonate (PC), 10% fluoroethylene carbonate (FEC), 60wt% dimethyl carbonate (DMC), 15wt% succinonitrile (SCN), 5wt% lithium bistrifluoromehanesulfonylimide (LiTFSI), and 1mol/l LiPF6 (Example 1 in par.0042).
The mixture of propylene carbonate (PC), dimethyl carbonate (DMC), and succinonitrile (SCN) is “a carbonate: nitrile solvent mixture, wherein the nitrile solvent comprises succinonitrile (SCN)” in claim 19.
The volume ratio of the carbonate: nitrile solvent is 1:0.236, which is within the range in claim 19. The examiner would like to note that the calculation is based on the following densities: propylene carbonate (PC)-1.21g/cm3, dimethyl carbonate (DMC)-1.07 g/cm3, and succinonitrile (SCN)-0.985 g/cm3.
Fluoroethylene carbonate (FEC) is the “electrolyte additive” in claim 19, and meets the limitations of claims 26 and 27.
LiPF6 is an alkali salt.
Nakajima fails to teach that the electrolyte solution comprises a polymer additive.
Cheng et al. teach battery electrolyte solutions, wherein the electrolyte solutions comprise additive compounds which impart desirable performance characteristics (abstract, title). The additives may be polymeric additives that improve the oxidative stability of the electrolyte and the cycle life and coulombic efficiency of the battery (par.0045, par.0056).
The battery of Cheng et al. comprises a cathode which may include lithium metal oxides as cathode active materials, and an anode which may comprise lithium and graphite as anode active materials (par.0040). These active materials are similar to the active materials in the cathode and anode of Nakajima (Example 1 in par.0044, par.0026-0027 of Nakajima).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to include a polymeric additive in the electrolyte solution of Nakajima in order to improve the cycle life and coulombic efficiency of the battery.
Therefore, the electrolyte solution of Nakajima modified by Cheng is equivalent to the electrolyte in claims 19, 26, and 27 of the instant application.
With regard to claim 22, LiPF6 is an alkali salt with a lithium cation.
With regard to claim 29, Nakajima teaches a lithium-ion battery comprising a positive electrode, a negative electrode, and the electrolyte solution (Example 1 in par.0042-0044).
With regard to claim 30, Nakajima teaches that the positive electrode comprises LiMnO2 (par.0044), which is the claimed “lithium manganese oxide (LMO)”.
With regard to claims 31 and 32, Nakajima teaches that the negative electrode comprises a mixture of artificial graphite and natural graphite (par.0044).
The artificial graphite and natural graphite meet the limitations of claim 31 for “carbon”.
With regard to claims 33 and 34, Nakajima teaches that the negative electrode may also be metallic lithium (par.0027).
7. Claims 23 and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nakajima (JP2012-018801 A, with attached machine translation) in view of Cheng et al. (US 2017/0162907) as applied to claim 19 above, and further in view of Smart et al. (US 2012/0007560).
With regard to clams 23 and 24, Nakajima modified by Cheng teach the electrolyte of claim 19 (see paragraph 6 above), but fail to teach that the electrolyte solution comprises an alkali salt with an oxalate-borate anion.
However, Smart et al. teach that LiPF6 and lithium difluoro(oxalato)borate (LiDFOB) are functionally equivalent as lithium salts for the electrolyte of a lithium-ion battery (par.0030).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to replace LiPF6 with lithium difluoro(oxalato)borate (LiDFOB) in the electrolyte solution of Nakajima modified by Cheng.
Lithium difluoro(oxalato)borate (LiDFOB) meets the limitations of claims 23 and 24.
Allowable Subject Matter
8. Claims 21 and 28 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The electrolyte of Nakajima (JP2012-018801 A, with attached machine translation) comprises a carbonate solvent, which is a mixture of propylene carbonate (PC) and dimethyl carbonate (DMC) (par.0042).
There are no prior art teachings that would motivate one of ordinary skill to modify Nakajima (JP2012-018801 A) and obtain the electrolyte in claim 21 of the instant application.
Nakajima (JP2012-018801 A, with attached machine translation) fail to teach an electrolyte comprising poly(methyl vinyl ether-alt-maleic anhydride).
There are no prior art teachings that would motivate one of ordinary skill to modify Nakajima (JP2012-018801 A) and obtain the electrolyte in claim 28 of the instant application.
9. Claims 36-41 are allowed.
Nakajima (JP2012-018801 A, with attached machine translation) fail to teach the electrolyte in claim 36.
There are no prior art teachings that would motivate one of ordinary skill to modify Nakajima (JP2012-018801 A) and obtain the electrolyte in claim 36 of the instant application.
Response to Arguments
10. Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 19, 21-24, 26-34, and 36-41 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
The examiner would like to note that:
-the objection to claim 23 is withdrawn after the applicant’s amendment to the claim;
-the rejection of claims 19, 21-24, 26, 27, and 29-34 under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsuoka et al. (JP 2017-188299 A, with machine translation made of record on March 31, 2025) in view of Amereller et al. (US 2015/0030939) is withdrawn after the applicant’s amendment to claim 19.
New grounds of rejection for claims 19, 22-24, 26, 27, and 29-34 are presented in paragraphs 5-7 above.
Conclusion
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/ANCA EOFF/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1722