DETAILED ACTION
Application “17/781262”, “SEMI-INTERPENETRATING POLYMER NETWORKS BASED ON POLYCARBONATES AS SEPARATORS FOR USE IN ALKALI-METAL BATTERIES, is the national stage entry of a PCT application filed on 11/20/20 and claims priority from a foreign application filed on 11/28/19.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This Office Action on the merits is in response to communication filed on 11/19/25.
Response to Arguments
Applicant argues that the section of Eitouni provides teachings with respect to molecular weight which aren’t relevant to the weight percentages claimed in claim1. This argument has been found persuasive; however, it was found that different parts of Eitouni do suggest that the constituents of the sIPN may be included in amounts lying within the claimed ranges. Therefore, a second non-final rejection to claim 1 is presented based on a different teaching of Eitouni.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 7 is allowed.
Claim 4 is 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 following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for indicating allowable subject matter:
Regarding claims 4 and 7, the closest prior art includes Eitouni (US 2017/0256818) and Armand (US 2020/0203763) which are relevant to the claimed invention as described in the rejection of claim 6. As described, the cited art teaches or suggests a solid electrolyte of a semi-interpenetrating network form which may comprise an alkali salt mixture including alkali (fluorosulfonyl) (trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (FTFSI) and a further conducting salt comprising at least alkali bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide) (TFSI).
However, the cited art does not teach or fairly suggest the weight ratio of alkali (fluorosulfonyl) (trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (FTFSI) to the weight sum of the components of the sIPN and the further conducting salt satisfies the concentration requirement as claimed. Therefore, claim 7 is not rejected over the cited art.
Additionally, the cited art does not teach or fairly suggest the polycarbonate of claim 1 further limited in that the polyalkyl carbonate monomers are selected from the group consisting of straight-chain or branched, substituted or unsubstituted polyethylene carbonates, polymethylene carbonates, polypropylene carbonates, polybutylene carbonates, polyhexylene carbonates or mixtures of at least two components thereof.
In the search, no closer prior art has been discovered which cures this deficiency of the cited art, or which independently fairly teaches or suggests claims 4 or 7 as a whole including the above-described features. Additionally, applicant’s originally filed specification suggests that the combination of the two salts and the sIPN structure provides improved results relative to comparable solid electrolytes omitting the sIPN or one of the named salts (page 13 of applicant’s specification), suggesting criticality associated with the claimed combination, which weighs against obviousness. Accordingly, claim 4 and 7 are found to contain allowable subject matter.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 2 requires a weight fraction of between 0.20 and 0.40 which does not appear to be described in the originally filed specification. More specifically, applicant’s specification appears to describe “20 wt %” as a concentration value, not a ratio (published paragraph [0025]). This is the only description in the originally filed specification pertinent to the range of claim 2. The section does not describe ratios between 0.2 and 0.4, understood to mean 0.2 ≤ [weight crosslinked]/[weight uncrosslinked] ≤ 0.4. Instead, the description appears to suggest that the concentration of one of the components is 20 wt%, though it is not immediately clear what this concentration is relative to, perhaps the total weight of the solid electrolyte.
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.
Claims 1-3 and 8-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Eitouni (US 2017/0256818).
Regarding claim 1-2, Eitouni teaches a solid electrolyte (abstract; [0002,0041]) for an alkali metal solid state battery (paragraphs [0006,0037]), wherein the solid electrolyte comprises a mixture of two different alkali metal conducting salts (“lithium salts… mixtures thereof”, paragraph [0041]) and a semi-interpenetrating network (sIPN) of a crosslinked and a non-crosslinked polymer (paragraph [0039] describes a mixture including at least a crosslinked polymer and a non-crosslinked polymer), wherein the semi-interpenetrating network comprises:
a non-crosslinked polymer selected from the group consisting of polyethylene oxide (PEO), polycarbonate (PC), polycaprolactone (PCL), chain end modified derivatives of these polymers, or mixtures of at least two components thereof (“Crosslinked IPN polymer chains 444 are distributed throughout the ionically-conductive domains 440 to form interpenetrating polymer networks. Some of the crosslinking sites among the IPN polymer chains 444 are shown as 446. There is no crosslinking among the ionically-conductive polymers 442 or between the ionically-conductive polymers 442 and the IPN polymer chains 444”, paragraph [0068]; “polyethylene oxide” or “poly(vinylenecarbonate-b-dimethylsiloxane” as examples of the ionically-conductive polymer at Table 3); and
a polycarbonate of crosslinkable polyalkyl carbonate monomers having a carbon number greater than or equal to 2 and less than or equal to 15 based on the single monomer as the crosslinked polymer, wherein the single polyalkyl carbonate monomer may be substituted or unsubstituted and comprises two crosslinkable groups selected from the group consisting of acrylic, methacrylic, epoxy, vinyl, isocyanide or mixtures of two different groups thereof (“Crosslinked IPN polymer chains 444 are distributed throughout the ionically-conductive domains 440 to form interpenetrating polymer networks. Some of the crosslinking sites among the IPN polymer chains 444 are shown as 446. There is no crosslinking among the ionically-conductive polymers 442 or between the ionically-conductive polymers 442 and the IPN polymer chains 444”, paragraph [0068]; “poly(vinylenecarbonate-b-divinylsiloxane)” as an example of the cross-link comprising IPN at Table 3).
Eitouni does not generally teach that the the content of the non-crosslinked polymer is 50-80% by weight, the content of the content of the polycarbonate of crosslinkable polyalkyl carbonate monomers is 10-50% by weight, or as required by claim 2, wherein the weight fraction of crosslinked to uncrosslinked polymer in the sIPN is greater than or equal to 0.2 and less than or equal to 0.4.
However, Eitouni does provide an example (paragraph [0091]) wherein the interpenetrating network comprises 5g of a PS-PEO block copolymer [non-crosslinked polymer] and 1.3 g of a PEO-PAGE copolymer [a crosslinked polymer], for a 1.3/(1.3+5)= 20.6 wt% of the crosslinked polymer and 79.4 wt% of the non-crosslinked polymer, and a ratio of 1.3/5 = 0.26. Additionally, it is noted that paragraph [0090] appears to set forth a different relative content of the crosslinked and non-crosslinked constituents, thus Eitouni also suggests that a range of ratios may be tried or utilized.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to apply the ratio content teaching of the example to the broader disclosure and therefore configure the solid polymer electrolyte such that the content of the non-crosslinked polymer is an amount lying within the range of 50-80% by weight, the content of the content of the polycarbonate of crosslinkable polyalkyl carbonate monomers is an amount lying within the range of 10-50% by weight, and, wherein the weight fraction of crosslinked to uncrosslinked polymer in the sIPN is an amount lying within the range of greater than or equal to 0.2 and less than or equal to 0.4, as the relative content of the crosslinked and non-crosslinked is suggested by example to produce a suitable solid electrolyte embodiment of the invention lies within the claimed ranges.
Regarding claim 3, Eitouni remains as applied to claim 1. Eitouni further teaches wherein the molecular weight of the polyalkyl carbonate monomers is greater than or equal to 100 g/mol and less than or equal to 3500 g/mol (for example, “poly(vinylenecarbonate-b-divinylsiloxane)” included at Table 3 has a monomer unit with molecular weight of around 272 g/mol [vinylene carbonate with divinyl siloxane interpreted as the common form of divinyltetramethyldisiloxane]).
Regarding claim 8-9, Eitouni remains as applied to claim 1. Eitouni further teaches the solid electrolyte disposed between an anode and a cathode to provide an alkali metal battery, which is a Li-solid battery (paragraph [0086, 0002]). It is noted that the claim 8 requirement that “the solid electrolyte is a solid electrolyte for a Li-solid battery” is a non-limiting statement of intended use.
Claims 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Eitouni (US 2017/0256818) and Hata (USP 6537468).
Regarding claim 5, Eitouni remains as applied to claim 1. Eitouni does not appear to teach wherein the polyalkyl carbonate monomers each carry two identical functional groups and the functional group is a methacryl group.
In the battery art, Hata teaches that the inclusion of two reactive elements, such as methyl methacrylate [a methacryl functional group], facilitates formation of a semi-IPN structure (c15:46-51).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to include two identical methacryl functional groups on the polyalkyl carbonate monomers for the benefit of facilitating formation of the semi-IPN structure in conventional manner as taught by Hata.
Claims 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Eitouni (US 2017/0256818) and Armand (US 2020/0203763).
Regarding claim 6, Eitouni remains as applied to claim 1. Eitouni teaches the solid electrolyte may comprise a mixture of salts (paragraph [0041]), but does not appear to teach wherein the mixture of two different alkali metal conducting salts comprises at least the salts alkali (fluorosulfonyl) (trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (FTFSI) and alkali bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide) (TFSI).
In the battery art, Armand teaches that a solid polymer electrolyte may include a combination of lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide and lithium fluorosulfonyl(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide as the salt combination (paragraph [0110]).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to include a combination of lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide and lithium fluorosulfonyl(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide as the salt combination, as a matter of simple substitution of one known salt for another to yield predictable results [i.e. adequate conductivity due to the presence of the salt in the electrolyte]. As described in MPEP 2141, a prima facie case of obviousness exists for such a substitution absent a persuasive showing of unexpected results associated with the otherwise known substitution.
Claims 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Eitouni (US 2017/0256818) and Zhang (US 2021/0226247).
Regarding claim 10, Eitouni remains as applied to claim 9. Eitouni does not expressly teach wherein the battery is a Li metal battery and the battery comprises at least one high current or high voltage electrode.
In the battery art, Zhang teaches that solid electrolytes are advantageously used in lithium metal battery applications and with high-voltage cathode material in order to improve safety and/or energy density of a battery (paragraph [0044]).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to employ the solid electrolyte of Eitouni in a lithium metal battery with a high voltage electrode, for the benefit of providing a device having improved energy density and/or safety as taught by Zhang.
Relevant or Related Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure, though not necessarily pertinent to applicant’s invention as claimed.
Mizuno (US 2017/0117582) battery electrolyte comprising fluorosulfonyl imide anions in combination;
Ueda (US 2016/0218329) battery electrolyte with TFSI and FTFSI preferred;
Fujimoto (US 2021/0036367) battery electrolyte comprising LiTFSI and LiFTFSI;
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JEREMIAH R SMITH whose telephone number is (571)270-7005. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri: 9 AM-5 PM (EST).
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/JEREMIAH R SMITH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1723