DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Status Summary
The current action is responsive to communications filed August 6, 2025.
Claims 14-20 remain withdrawn from consideration. Claims 21-25 were cancelled.
Claims 1-13 and 26-30 are fully considered herein.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-13 and 26-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Amended claim 1 has a limitation drawn to the electrical component supported by the glass core layer, but it is unclear if applicant is claiming the electrical component or not. This is because this limitation follows from an explanation of the what the vias are to do (i.e. provide power to an external device supported by the core layer). In that sense, everything after the limitation “the via to” is the intended function (i.e. intended use) of the vias and the claimed apparatus wouldn’t actually require an electrical component on the glass core layer as long as the vias would have been capable of being coupled to such as electrical component.
For the purposes of examination, this limitation will be interpreted in either manner, but clarification is requested.
Claims 2-13 and 26-30 are indefinite due to their dependence therefrom.
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.
Claim(s) 1-4, 6, 9-12, and 26-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hahn et al (US 2011/0070480) with or without the further teaching of Bates et al (USP 5,338,625). Hahn was previously cited and relied on. Bates is being cited for the first time in this office action. Its use was necessitated by the amendment to claim 1.
With respect to claim 1, Hahn discloses an apparatus comprising a core layer (substrate 1) which can be made of glass including a cavity (depression 2) that extends from a first surface (upper surface of 1) towards a second surface (bottom of 1) and a battery. See fig. 6 and par. 0029-0031. The battery includes first and second conductive materials (pairs (4, 7a) and (5, 7b)) and an electrolyte 3 to separate the first and second conductive material (par. 0031-0033). Hahn further discloses a cover 10 disposed on the first surface including vias (electrical lead throughs 8a and 8b) and these vias are clearly for power some electrical component external to the battery (par. 0001-0003).
Although Hahn doesn’t not explicitly disclose that the cover is a dielectric, if the cover of Hahn were a non-dielectric (i.e. a conductive material), that would short the electrodes to each other in the embodiment of fig. 6. Moreover, Hahn had an alternative embodiment where they used the core layer to support the vias (fig. 1) and Hahn disclosed a number of dielectric materials suitable for supporting electrical connection without shorting the electrodes (par. 0030). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing to utilize a dielectric for the cover of Hahn in order to preserve all the electrical signal for the device to be run with the battery.
Although Hahn does not explicitly disclose an electrical component on the core layer, it is noted in the 112 rejection above that this can be interpreted as merely being the intended use of the vias. Alternatively, Hahn is clearly drawn to applications of microbatteries to provide power to integrated electronics (par. 0001-0007 and 0048). Bates teaches in a similar thin film battery that these batteries can be fabricated onto a semiconductor chip (abstract and col. 3, ll. 21-38. Such a device would have the battery and semiconductor device sharing the same substrate components. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing to utilize the Hahn microbattery structure as part of a larger integrated battery/electronic device, as suggested by Bates, in order to fully integrate the battery into the electrical devices being powered.
With respect to claim 2, anode 4 is between current collector 7a and the electrolyte 3 and the cathode layer 5 is between current collector 7b and 3 (fig. 6).
With respect to claim 3, Hahn teaches the use of gelled polymer electrolyte which constitutes a solid electrolyte (par. 0020). Bates also teaches the use of solid electrolytes (col. 3, ll. 52-55).
With respect to claims 4, 28, and 29, see fig. 6. The portion 7a is parallel to the first surface of the core layer.
With respect to claim 6, Hahn teaches the use of multiple cavities in the core layer. These cavities are all distributed along the first surface separated by portion of the core layer. See fig. 5 and par. 0036-0039.
With respect to claim 9, it is clear that Hahn is constructing multiple batteries and any of the arbitrary batteries constructed constitute a first and second battery.
With respect to claims 10 and 11, it would have been obvious to connect multiple batteries in series and/or in parallel as that is a well-known manner of increasing the voltage and amperage respectively of a battery. This is explicitly suggested by Bates as these microbatteries by themselves produce very small power levels and need scaling with multiple cells in series. See col. 6, ll. 10-26. See also the alternative rejection of claim 11 below.
With respect to claims 12 and 30, the embodiment of fig. 5 shows the cavity extending from the first surface to the second surface (par. 0037). In this embodiment, the cavity constitutes a hole in the core layer 1 (fig. 5b for example).
With respect to claims 26 and 27, the dielectric 10 encloses the cavity portion of the battery and has vias for both the first and second conductive material extending from the top surface of the dielectric (fig. 6).
Claim(s) 5, 7, 8, 13 and claim 11 in the alternative are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hahn with or without Bates as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Laurent et al (US 2007/0238019). Laurent is being cited and relied on for the first time with this office action. Its use here was necessitated by the amendment to claim 1 that required a new rejection for claim 1.
With respect to claim 5, Hahn set forth all the limitations of claim 4 and further set forth that the wall of the cavity can be transverse to the first surface of the glass core layer (fig. 5a for example). Hahn does not disclose an embodiment where the second conductive material is positioned within the cavity such that the first conductive material surrounds the second conductive material. Laurent discloses an alternate configuration of batteries largely analogous to the structure of Hahn except upside down where protective layer 9 forms a cavity for the battery analogous to the function of 1 in Hahn, and support 1 of Laurent functions as the cover 10 of Hahn. Laurent differs in that it shows that the battery elements can be laminated over each other as opposed to the lateral structure of Hahn. Such a configuration results in the second conductive material (5, 8) being surrounded by the first conductive material (4, 6). See fig. 2 and par. 0022. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing to utilize the alternate battery construction of Laurent for the battery of Hahn because the substitution of one known microbattery construction means for another requires only routine skill in the art.
With respect to claim 7 or claim 11 in the alternative, Hahn set forth all the limitations of the claims but did not explicitly recite the first conductive material extending between different multiple cavities. However, this is essentially equivalent to the well-known principle of constructing batteries in parallel where multiple cathodes and anodes are constructed to be connected to each other. This is explicitly suggested by Laurent (par. 0008-0009). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing to connect the batteries in the cavities of Hahn in parallel to improve the battery capacity. An obvious manner of connecting, as an example, an electrode 7a in one cavity to its analogous 7a in another cavity would be to connect them together via lead element 11 along the first surface of Hahn (see fig. 6).
With respect to claim 8, as discussed above, Laurent rendered obvious connecting cathodes and anodes in parallel which would require both first and second conductive materials to be connected across multiple cavities. As to the second conductive material covering the first conductive material, the battery configuration of fig. 2 of Laurent has second material (5,8) covering the first conductive material 6 when fig. 2 is oriented in the analogous manner of fig. 6 of Hahn. See discussion of claim 5 above.
With respect to claim 13 (those limitations not discussed above), Hahn and Laurent set forth all the limitations of the claim but did not explicitly suggest the cavity (depression 2) was defined circularly. Hahn only suggested a rectangular shape for the depression. However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing to construct the depression of Hahn with any number of suitable shapes including circular shapes. A mere change in shape is generally determined to be prima facie obvious (MPEP 2144.04(IV)(B).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-13 and 26-30 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.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KAJ K OLSEN whose telephone number is (571)272-1344. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 8 AM - 5 PM.
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/KAJ K OLSEN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1714
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