DETAILED ACTION
Notice to Applicant
In the amendment dated 2026-09-10, the following has occurred: Claims 1 and 10 have been amended; Claims 2, 5-8, and 14 have been (previously) canceled.
Claims 1, 3-4, and 9-13 are pending and are examined herein. This is a Final Rejection.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Note on Claim Interpretation
Claim 1 has been amended to require “an OCV value exceeding 2.7 V.” Cells of a particular composition do not have a given OCV. The OCV instead varies with level of charge. The limitation has been interpreted as a possible OCV, given, e.g., full charge and minimal resistive and polarization contributions from the non-active components of the cell, and which is therefore mostly a function of the cell chemistry.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claims 1, 3-4, 9 and 11-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nishino (US 2014/0082931 to Nishino et al.), with reference to Hasegawa (US 2018/0287209 to Hasegawa et al.) for evidence of ordinary skill in the art.
Regarding Claim 1, Nishino teaches:
a method of manufacturing a lithium metal unit cell for all-solid-state batteries comprising stacking a lithium anode (comprising active material and current collector), a solid electrolyte, and a positive electrode (comprising active material and current collector) to form a stack (Fig. 4A, ¶ 0040 and 0062)
wherein the anode can comprise conventional active materials in the art, including metals such as In, Al, Si, and Sn, or composite metal oxides, such as lithium titanium oxide, or lithiated Nb2O5 (¶ 0049)
wet-type cold isostatic pressure, performed in a sealed bag-type protector under water pressure (¶ 0071-0075)
wherein the cathode material includes lithium cobaltate and other conventional lithium transition metal oxides, known in the art to have OCVs close to 4 V relative to lithium metal (¶ 0064)
Nishino further teaches:
pressing the stack isostatically at several hundred MPa, such as a range between 300-500 MPa (¶ 0073), including examples pressed at 400 MPa for 5 minutes (example 2)
As further evidence of ordinary skill in the art in this regard, the Office cites to Hasegawa (US 2018/0287209), directed towards a similar solid state battery, teaches cold isostatic pressing at 400 MPa, indicating that 400 MPa was well within conventionally known and used pressures for a handful of minutes. It would have been obvious to press the stack at about 400 MPa for 5 minutes, since it was taught by Nishino and was otherwise widely known in the art.
Nishino does not explicitly teach:
pure lithium metal anode active material
Hasegawa, however, teaches that a substantially similar method works with a wide range of anode active materials, including lithium, indium, tin, or silicon (¶ 0088). Lithium was therefore a substitutable equivalent for the metals taught in Nishino in the same kind of isostatic pressing formation process. Simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results has been found to be obvious. See KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007).
Regarding Claim 3, Nishino teaches:
pressing the stack all at once (Fig. 1C, e.g. ¶ 0035-0036)
Regarding Claim 4, Nishino teaches:
continuous target pressure without ramping (see e.g. ¶ 0038-0040 and examples)
Regarding Claim 9, Nishino teaches:
sulfide solid electrolytes (¶ 0056)
Regarding Claims 11-13, Nishino teaches:
a full battery cell, including an electrode assembly, manufactured according to the method (see Examples and Figs.)
Claims 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nishino (US 2014/0082931 to Nishino et al.) with reference to Hasegawa (US 2018/0287209 to Hasegawa et al.) for evidence of ordinary skill in the art, in further view of Ohta (US 2014/0162113 to Ohta et al.).
Regarding Claim 10, Nishino teaches:
collectors of steel, aluminum, nickel, iron, titanium, carbon, and copper (para 0061)
Nishino does not explicitly teach a collector surface treatment. Such treatments were conventional in the art. See Ohta at paragraph 0035. Use of a known technique to improve similar devices, methods, or products in the same way, and applying a known technique to a known device, method, or product ready for improvement to yield predictable results has been found to be obvious. See KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). In the instant case, it would have been obvious to treat the surface of the collector to improve its surface features.
Response to Arguments
The arguments submitted 2026-09-10 have been considered but are not persuasive. Claim 1 has been amended to require lithium metal as the anode. While Nishino does not teach pure lithium, Hasegawa, also teaching an isostatic pressing formation process, does teach lithium as a substitutable equivalent for the conventional metal anodes taught in Nishino. The argument that the limitation “an OCV value exceeding 2.7 V” is not taught by the prior art is not creditable. Conventional cathode materials taught by Nishino and Hasegawa are known to have higher OCVs higher than 3 relative to lithium, including with the standard solid electrolyte materials known in the art. This is just a material property of the conventional cathode materials and electrolytes being taught, at least for conventional cell materials with conventional charging regimes. The claimed 2.7 V is actually a rather low bound, hardly narrowing the claims at all relative to conventional cells in the art.
As for the teaching of a lithium anode, the Office additionally cites here US Patent No. 4,477,545 to Akridge et al., which teaches cold isostatic pressing, wet or dry (column 4), at 54,000 psi, or 372 MPa for about a minute (column 5 line 6, Table 1). Akridge further teaches a lithium metal anode with a solid electrolyte, demonstrating that cold isostatic pressing of all-solid lithium-metal battery cells within the claimed range has been known for more than 40 years, only shortly after the discovery of modern lithium transition metal oxide cathode materials (which would raise the OCV of the cell).
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 Michael Dignan, whose telephone number is (571) 272-6425. The examiner can normally be reached from Monday to Friday between 10 AM and 6:30 PM. If any attempt to reach the examiner by telephone is unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Tiffany Legette, can be reached at (571)270-7078. Another resource that is available to applicants is the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR). Information regarding the status of an application can be obtained from the (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAX. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, please feel free to contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). Applicants are invited to contact the Office to schedule an in-person interview to discuss and resolve the issues set forth in this Office Action. Although an interview is not required, the Office believes that an interview can be of use to resolve any issues related to a patent application in an efficient and prompt manner.
/MICHAEL L DIGNAN/Examiner, Art Unit 1723
