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 .
Response to Arguments
In view of the appeal brief filed on 03/20/2026, PROSECUTION IS HEREBY REOPENED. New grounds of rejection are set forth below.
To avoid abandonment of the application, appellant must exercise one of the following two options:
(1) file a reply under 37 CFR 1.111 (if this Office action is non-final) or a reply under 37 CFR 1.113 (if this Office action is final); or,
(2) initiate a new appeal by filing a notice of appeal under 37 CFR 41.31 followed by an appeal brief under 37 CFR 41.37. The previously paid notice of appeal fee and appeal brief fee can be applied to the new appeal. If, however, the appeal fees set forth in 37 CFR 41.20 have been increased since they were previously paid, then appellant must pay the difference between the increased fees and the amount previously paid.
A Supervisory Patent Examiner (SPE) has approved of reopening prosecution by signing below:
/IBRAHIME A ABRAHAM/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3761
Please note, only claims 15 and 16 have new grounds of rejection.
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 1-7 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Pub. 2023/0030159 by Haug et al. (“Haug”) in view of NPL M.R. Maina et al. High surface quality welding of aluminum using adjustable ring-mode fiber laser, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Volume 258, Pages 180-188, (“Maina”) as evidenced by US Pub. 2020/0171603 by Yang et al. (“Yang”), and in view of JP H09216078 by Ishihara et al. (“Ishihara”). A machine translation of Ishihara is provided for reference.
Regarding claim 1, Haug teaches a method for laser welding of a workpiece (Abstract), welding at a corner joint of two workpiece parts of the workpiece by a welding laser beam (Para. [0032]), feeding an output laser beam into a first end of a multiclad fiber to generate the welding laser beam (Paras. [0033]-[0035]), wherein the multiclad fiber comprises at least a core fiber and a ring fiber surrounding the core fiber (Para. [0077]: “two-in-one fiber 30 comprises a central core fiber 31 and a surrounding ring fiber 32”), wherein a first portion LK of a laser power output of the output laser beam is fed into the core fiber and a second portion LR of the laser power output of the output laser beam is fed into the ring fiber (Para. [0077]: “A first laser beam 11 is coupled into the ring fiber 32 and a second laser beam 12 is coupled into the core fiber 31”), wherein a second end of the multiclad fiber is reproduced on the workpiece, and welding the workpiece by deep welding (Fig. 1, para. [0055]: “welding using a variant of the deep welding method using a laser welding device 3”).
Haug does not expressly disclose to create an aluminum connection between the two workpiece parts.
However, Maina teaches a method of laser welding aluminum (Abstract, and Pg. 181, 3rd paragraph, “welding of two aluminum alloy 5022 sheets”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the laser welding method of Haug the aluminum welding techniques of Maina.
One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include aluminum as a material to process since aluminum is abundant and useful for fabrication “due to the high strength-to-weight ratio” (Yang, para. [0007]).
Haug and Maina do not expressly disclose welding the two workpiece parts of the workpiece by deep welding using the welding laser beam, wherein the two workpiece parts bear against each other at an abutting area lying parallel to a beam propagation direction of the welding laser beam. However, Ishihara teaches in a similar laser welding method (Abstract: “laser beam welding by butting two plates”) wherein welding the two workpiece parts of the workpiece by deep welding using the welding laser beam, wherein the two workpiece parts bear against each other at an abutting area lying parallel to a beam propagation direction of the welding laser beam (Para. [0003]: “Fig. 3 is a schematic view of such a butt laser welding. As shown in the figure, in the conventional case, a laser beam is provided along a vertical axis (5) from directly above a joint (1) of two fixed steel plates. Of the two welded members (3) and (4) butted to each other while irradiating the laser beam and sending the beam exit port (2) in the vertical direction”)
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It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the laser welding method of Haug and Maina with the parallel welding laser beam as taught by Ishihara. A laser welding method of having a parallel laser beam propagation relative to the abutting area of two workpieces is considered “conventional” and well known in the art (Paras. [0002]-[0003]).
Regarding claim 2, Haug further teaches wherein the multiclad fiber comprises a 2-in-1 fiber (Para. [0034]: “the first and the second laser beams are guided in a two-in-one fiber having a core fiber and a ring fiber”).
Regarding claims 3-5, Haug does not expressly disclose wherein the first portion LK of the laser power output for the core fiber and the second portion LR of the laser power output for the ring fiber are selected with
0.15≤LK/(LK+LR)≤0.50
0.25≤LK/(LK+LR)≤0.45
LK/(LK+LR)=0.35
However, Maina teaches wherein the first portion LK of the laser power output for the core fiber and the second portion LR of the laser power output for the ring fiber are selected with LK/(LK+LR)=0.35 (Pgs. 181 and 182, Table 2 shows the various combinations of laser center power and ring power used, whereas Case A would represent “LK” as Center power at 6.0kW and “LR” as Ring power at 4.0kW, which would equal .333).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide Haug, Maina, and Ishihara with the power distributions between core and ring as further taught by Maina. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to utilize the parameters of Maina in order to “improve penetration and stabilize the welding phenomenon at a high welding speed” (Maina, Abstract).
Regarding claims 6 and 7, Haug further teaches wherein the laser welding is effected at an advancement speed v with v≥7 m/min or v≥10 m/min (Para. [0069]: “feed rate was 10m/min”, also see para. [0063] which defines feed rate as welding speed).
Regarding claim 14, Haug further teaches wherein the multiclad fiber is selected such that, for a diameter DK of the core fiber and a diameter DR of the ring fiber, the following holds true: 2.5≤DR/DK≤6 (Para. [0035]: “Two-in-one fibers that have a core fiber having the smallest possible core fiber diameter ≤150 μm and a ring fiber having an external diameter greater than three times the core fiber diameter have proven to be particularly advantageous for generating different laser characteristics”).
Claims 8, 9, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Pub. 2023/0030159 by Haug et al. (“Haug”) in view of NPL M.R. Maina et al. High surface quality welding of aluminum using adjustable ring-mode fiber laser, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Volume 258, Pages 180-188, (“Maina”) and JP H09216078 by Ishihara et al. (“Ishihara”), in further view of US Pub. 2020/0171603 by Yang et al. (“Yang”).
Regarding claims 8 and 9, Haug does not expressly disclose wherein the laser welding is effected at the advancement speed v with v≥20 m/min or v≥30 m/min.
However, Yang teaches a method for laser welding aluminum (Para. [0001]), wherein the laser welding is effected at the advancement speed v with v≥20 m/min or v≥30 m/min (Para. [0068]: “laser beam 24 … at a travel speed of 5 m/min to 100 m/min”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the laser welding process of Haug, Maina and Ishihara with the welding travel speed as taught by Yang. One of ordinary skill would be motivated to improve the welding speed in order to improve efficiency.
Regarding claim 13, Haug does not expressly disclose wherein the output laser beam is generated by a solid-state laser.
However, Yang teaches a laser welding method wherein the output laser beam is generated by a solid-state laser (Para. [0041]: “[t]he laser beam employed to form the laser weld joint may be a solid-state laser beam or a gas laser beam depending on the characteristics of the metal workpieces being joined and the laser welding mode”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the laser welding method of Haug, Maina, and Ishihara with the solid-state laser as taught by Yang. One of ordinary skill would be motivated to select this type of laser “depending on the characteristics of the metal” (Para. [0041]).
Claims 10-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Pub. 2023/0030159 by Haug et al. (“Haug”) in view of NPL M.R. Maina et al. High surface quality welding of aluminum using adjustable ring-mode fiber laser, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Volume 258, Pages 180-188, (“Maina”) and JP H09216078 by Ishihara et al. (“Ishihara”), in further view of US Pub. 2012/0298638 by Beck et al. (“Beck”).
Regarding claims 10-12, Haug does not expressly disclose wherein the second end of the multiclad fiber is reproduced on the workpiece enlarged by an enlargement factor VF, with VF≥1.0, or VF≥1.5, or VF≥2.0.
However, Beck teaches a method for laser welding two metal parts from aluminum (Abstract), wherein the second end of the multiclad fiber is reproduced on the workpiece enlarged by an enlargement factor VF, with VF≥1.0, or VF≥1.5, or VF≥2.0 (Para. [0062]: “beam spot diameter of the laser beam 20 or 20’ is thereby enlarged on the surface 26 by around factor 3 in comparison with the beam spot diameter of the focused laser beam 20”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the laser welding method of Haug, Maita, and Ishihara with the enlargement factor as taught by Beck. One of ordinary skill would be motivated to include this feature in order to spread out the impact area of the laser beam “for smoothing the corresponding surfaces” (Para. [0063]).
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Pub. 2023/0030159 by Haug et al. (“Haug”) in view of NPL M.R. Maina et al. High surface quality welding of aluminum using adjustable ring-mode fiber laser, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Volume 258, Pages 180-188, (“Maina”) and JP H09216078 by Ishihara et al. (“Ishihara”), in further view of US Pub. 2020/0254562 by Brescoe et al. (“Brescoe”).
Regarding claim 15, Haug does not expressly disclose wherein the welding laser beam with its focus in a beam propagation direction has a maximum height offset MHO with respect to a surface of the workpiece, with |MHO|≤1.5 mm.
However, Brescoe teaches a similar laser welding method (Fig. 1A, para. [0007]: “laser welding a workpiece in accordance with the present invention comprises delivering a focused beam of laser-radiation to the workpiece”, para. [0033]: “that the inventive method could be applied to edge, fillet, seam, or butt welding”), wherein the welding laser beam (para. [0019]: “[f]ocused beam 18 is directed onto a workpiece 22”) with its focus in a beam propagation direction has a maximum height offset MHO with respect to a surface of the workpiece, with |MHO|≤1.5 mm (Para. [0019]: “Focus 20 is located close to a top surface of workpiece 22, which could be above, on, or below the surface … preferably at a depth of focus between about 1 millimeters (mm) above the surface and about 2 mm below the surface”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the laser welding system of Haug the focus height offset as taught by Brescoe. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include this feature in order to “prevent cracking and other defects at the stop location by reducing the dimensions of the melt zone and keyhole in a control manner” (Para. [0026]).
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Pub. 2023/0030159 by Haug et al. (“Haug”) in view of NPL M.R. Maina et al. High surface quality welding of aluminum using adjustable ring-mode fiber laser, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Volume 258, Pages 180-188, (“Maina”) and JP H09216078 by Ishihara et al. (“Ishihara”), in further view of US Pub. 2021/0060702 by Telenko, Jr. et al. (“Telenko”).
Regarding claim 16, Haug does not expressly disclose wherein the welding laser beam has a maximum lateral offset MLO on the workpiece with respect to an abutting area of the workpiece parts, with |MLO|≤0.2 mm.
However, Telenko teaches a similar method for welding two workpieces of aluminum using a laser beam (Figs. 2A and 2B, para. [0006]), wherein the welding laser beam has a maximum lateral offset MLO on the workpiece (202 and 204) with respect to an abutting area of the workpiece parts, with |MLO|≤0.2 mm (Fig. 2B, para. [0071]: “an offset of the weld laser may be altered. In one example approach, the weld laser is offset by approximately 0.2 millimeters (mm) toward the thicker gauge material for the first weld pass to create the first laser weld 216a”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the laser welding system of Haug the laser beam lateral offset as taught by Telenko. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include the offset as taught by Telenko in order to “create different types of laser welds in the workpieces” (Para. [0067]).
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Pub. 2023/0030159 by Haug et al. (“Haug”) in view of NPL M.R. Maina et al. High surface quality welding of aluminum using adjustable ring-mode fiber laser, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Volume 258, Pages 180-188, (“Maina”) and JP H09216078 by Ishihara et al. (“Ishihara”), in further view of US Pub. 2017/0144249 by Fujiwara et al. (“Fujiwara”).
Regarding claim 18, Haug does not expressly disclose wherein the two workpiece parts at the corner joint in a beam propagation direction of the welding laser beam are arranged in relation to one another in line or with a step having a step height SH, with SH≤0.3 mm.
However, Fujiwara teaches a laser welding method wherein the two workpiece parts at the corner joint in a beam propagation direction of the welding laser beam are arranged in relation to one another in line or with a step having a step height SH, with SH≤0.3 mm (Paras. [0034]-[0039]: “the laser welding illustrated in (a) and (b) of FIG. 2, FIG. 5 and FIG. 6 show the coverage of the protruding length of the end portion of workpiece 11a protruding relative to the extension of the upper surface of workpiece 11b with respect to the gap between workpiece 11a and workpiece 11b”, para. [0037]: “in FIG. 5, good results (◯) can be obtained when the protruding length is 0.3 mm to 0.4 mm and the gap is 0 mm to 0.4 mm”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the welding laser system of Haug, Maina, and Ishihara with the method of Fujiwara. A prima facie case of obviousness exists where the claimed ranges and prior art ranges overlap or are close enough that one skilled in the art would have expected to have the same properties. See MPEP 2144.05 I.
Claims 19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Pub. 2023/0030159 by Haug et al. (“Haug”) in view of NPL M.R. Maina et al. High surface quality welding of aluminum using adjustable ring-mode fiber laser, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Volume 258, Pages 180-188, (“Maina”) and JP H09216078 by Ishihara et al. (“Ishihara”), in further view of US Pub. 2013/0270981 by Shishido et al. (“Shishido”).
Regarding claims 19 and 20, Haug does not expressly disclose, wherein the two workpiece parts are parts of a battery housing; or
wherein one of the two workpiece parts is a cap which closes off the battery housing.
However, Shishido teaches a laser welding method (Abstract) wherein the two workpiece parts are parts of a battery housing (Figs. 1 and 2, para. [0018]: “the present method to the step of manufacturing a battery exemplifying an electrical storage device”); and
wherein one of the two workpiece parts is a cap (lid plate) which closes off the battery housing (Para. [0020]: “lid plate 2 is a plate member in a belt shape, and has an outer surface as part of the outer sides of the case BC and an inner surface as part of the inner sides of the case BC”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include in the laser welding method of Haug, Maina, and Ishihara with the method of welding a battery housing as taught by Shishido. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to incorporate this method in order to “prevent as much as possible spatter of the molten matter into the device case” (Para. [0017]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL W HATTEN whose telephone number is (703)756-1362. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10-6 (EST).
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ibrahime Abraham can be reached at (571)270-5569. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DANIEL WARD HATTEN/ Examiner, Art Unit 3761
/IBRAHIME A ABRAHAM/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3761
Prosecution Insights