Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
Continued Examination under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 10/30/25 has been entered.
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 of this title, 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.
1. Claims 1-3, 6-9, 36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwon et al. (US20140377620) in view of Cho et al. (US20040241549).
2. Regarding claim 1, Kwon teaches a battery comprising: an anode; a cathode; a separator disposed between the anode and the cathode; and an electrolyte (In addition, the present disclosure provides a secondary battery comprising a cathode, an anode, a separator interposed between the cathode and the anode, and an electrolyte [0111]), wherein at least one of the anode or the cathode comprises an electroactive material disposed in contact with a polymer substrate to form an electrode material sheet, wherein the polymer substrate is a porous or a nonporous sheet, wherein the polymer substrate is embedded within and is sandwiched between two layers of the electroactive material, and wherein the electrode material sheet is in electrical contact with a current collector (see Fig. below).
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3. Kwon is silent about the components of the active material
4. Cho teaches a negative electrode comprising active material layer (see Fig. below) for the benefit of a rechargeable lithium battery exhibiting an improved cycle life characteristic [0003].
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5. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kwon with Cho’s teachings for the benefit of a rechargeable lithium battery exhibiting an improved cycle life characteristic.
6. The battery of claim 1, wherein the battery is a primary battery or a secondary battery (The present disclosure provides a sheet-form electrode for a secondary battery (abstract)).
7. The battery of claim 1, wherein the battery is prismatic or cylindrical (cylindrical shape, see Figure 9).
8. The battery of claim 1, wherein the anode comprises lithium, sodium, magnesium, aluminum, zinc, lead, or iron (lithium-titanium complex oxide (LTO), and metals (Me) Li, Zn, Mg, and Fe [0029]).
9. The battery of claim 1, wherein the cathode comprises lead oxide, manganese oxide, or intercalating materials (an active material selected from the group consisting of LiCoO2, LiNiO2, LiMn2O4 [0029])
10. The battery of claim 1, wherein the separator comprises nylon, polyester, (polyesters [0048])
11. The battery of claim 1, wherein the electrolyte is an aqueous electrolyte or a nonaqueous electrolyte (electrolyte which is not particularly limited to its kinds and may be selected from a non-aqueous electrolyte solution [0132]).
12. The battery of claim 1, wherein the electrolyte is an aqueous electrolyte, and wherein the aqueous electrolyte is alkaline electrolyte, neutral electrolyte, acidic electrolyte, aqueous gelled electrolyte, or any combinations thereof (a gel polymer electrolyte [0042]; water is added to prepare a polymer solution [0103]).
13. The battery of claim 1, wherein the electrolyte is a nonaqueous electrolyte, and wherein the nonaqueous electrolyte is organic electrolyte, ionic liquid, polymer solid electrolyte, or any combinations thereof (a solid electrolyte using PEO [0042]).
14. The battery of claim 1, wherein the polymer substrate (The porous polymer layer 30 may have a porous structure for good introduction of an electrolyte solution in an electrode active material layer, and have a pore size of 0.01 to 10 μm and a porosity of 5 to 95% [0101]; The porous coating layer may be formed to have a porous structure through phase separation or phase change by a non-solvent during its preparation [0102]) comprises a conductive coating (The polymer may be a linear polymer with polarity, an oxide-based linear polymer [0089-0090])
15. Claims 8 and 35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kwon et al. (US20140377620) in view of Cho et al. (US20040241549) as applied to claim 1 in view of Yadav et al. (US 20200083559, PFCT filed: 5/4/2018).
16. Regarding claims 8 and 35, the complete discussion of Kwon as applied to claim 1 is incorporated herein. Secondary batteries have a cylindrical, prismatic, or pouch shape [0005].
17. Kwon teaches wherein the electrode material sheet comprises: a first layer comprising the polymer substrate embedded within and sandwiched between the two layers of the electroactive material (see Fig. below).
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and a second layer comprising a second polymer substrate embedded within and sandwiched between two additional layers of the electroactive material, wherein the current collector is sandwiched between the first layer and the second layer (see Fig. below)
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18. However, they are silent about the limitations of claim 8.
19. Yadav teaches the electrolyte can be acidic, alkaline, ionic liquids, organic-based, solid-phase, gelled, etc. or combinations thereof [0034] for the benefit of improving the safety and the economics of the battery [0003].
20. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kwon with first and second layers for the cathode and anode, in addition to Yadav’s teachings for the benefit of improving the safety and the economics of the battery.
Conclusion
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/OLATUNJI A GODO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1752