DETAILED ACTION
Application 17/828996, “ELECTRICAL CONTACT MATERIAL FOR INTEGRATION AS A CONTACT LAYER IN A REVERSIBLE SOLID-OXIDE FUEL CELL”, was filed with the USPTO on 5/31/22 and claims priority from a foreign application filed on 5/28/21.
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 1/12/26.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 1/12/26 have been fully considered. Applicant’s arguments are largely moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection based on Namba (US 2011/0236789), which were necessitated by amendment.
More specifically, applicant’s arguments that Wood fails to compositionally teach the claimed invention are moot as Wood has been withdrawn as the applied reference.
As to applicant’s arguments that Wood fails to teach the material “configured to form” the contact layers as presently claimed, applicant argues that the Wood rejection was deficient because the Office has given no consideration to these limitations (remarks page 25). Applicant further argues that the present claims are to contact materials “with tightly constrained, interdependent physical properties tailored to RSOFC operation, as described throughout the specification” (remarks page 26). In response, the Examiner generally agrees with applicant’s analysis. To be clear, the Examiner does give the “configured to” limitations weight in terms of the properties implied by the limitations, i.e. suitability to function as an RSOFC material, e.g. desirable conductivity and thermal expansion matching characteristics for the material. However, the particular structure of the layers, or the details of the RSOFC are not required to be taught by the prior art, since the claimed invention is drawn to a contact material, not a contact layer or an RSOFC. Since the presently applied reference, Namba, teaches the same or substantially the same perovskite type materials, with the same or similar compositions, the same properties are expected. Thus, the Namba material is found to possess the required properties and be readable on the claimed contact material, however, a teaching of this intended use is not required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
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.
Claim(s) 1-6, 8-9, 11, 14-16, 18 and 21-23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by, or alternatively under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over, Namba (US 2011/0236789).
Regarding claim 1, 5, 11 and 18 Namba teaches a contact material (Namba teaches a material, with “contact material” being a statement of intended use rather than a structural limitation): comprising: a base material comprising a first amount of Lanthanum, a second amount of Nickel, and a third amount of Oxygen; a fourth amount of a first doping agent [iron]; and a fifth amount of a second doping agent [cobalt and/or copper] (e.g. “La1-xAzCuxFeyBzO3-δ”, paragraph [0020-0021]; “LaNi1-a-bFeaCobO3-δ”, paragraph [0087]; see also Tables such as 1, 3 8).
The requirements that the first doping agent [iron] is “configured to stabilize a crystal structure” and that the second doping agent is “configured to reduce a thermal expansion of the base material” are found to be a non-limiting statement of intended effect which does not provide any additional structure beyond that suggested by Namba. In other words, since the same elements are used in the same or similar type material, the same functional effects are expected.
Namba further teaches that exemplary embodiments of the materials may exhibit thermal expansion coefficients values lying within the claimed range (e.g. Tables 1, 3, 8).
Namba further teaches exemplary conductivity values which are greater than 200 S/cm, at least for at least one value lying within the 600 to 900 °C range (e.g. Tables 1, 3, 8). Therefore, the claimed conductivity property is found to be anticipated by Namba since the exemplary values lie within the claimed range, or is at least obvious because the conductivity value range suggested by Namba appears to overlap or lie within the claimed range.
Claim 1 further requires that the contact material is “configured to form” a set of contact layers in a reversible solid-oxide fuel cell stack, and provide additional details of the contact layer and/or the fuel cell stack and its components. However, claim 1 is drawn to the contact material itself, not a contact layer or a reversible solid-oxide fuel cell stack. The additional “configured to” limitations of the claims describe the fuel cell or the contact layers, but only limit the contact material in that the contact material must be capable of forming the contact layers by a skilled artisan, if the artisan were to choose to do so [which is not required]. In other words, the “configured to” limitations are found to implicitly set forth a materials property, but do not require a structural configuration of the material, and do not require that the prior art demonstrates the same use of the material or teaches recited elements of a reversible solid-oxide fuel cell.
Since Namba teaches a material having substantially the same composition, and further teaches similar or same properties such as coefficient of thermal expansion and conductivity values, as described above, the claimed invention is found to be anticipated because the Namba material has the same or substantially the same properties as that claimed, or alternatively is found to be obvious because the broader disclosure of suggests materials having a scope overlapping that claimed, or at least close enough thereto such that the material would behave substantially the same if utilized as a contact material (see MPEP 2144.05 regarding obviousness when the scope of the prior art overlaps the claimed invention, or is close enough such that similar functions are achieved).
Regarding claim 2-4, the cited art remains as applied to claim 1. These claims further requires that the contact material is configured to form a set of contact layers in a reversible solid-oxide fuel cell stack, and provide additional details of the contact layer and/or the fuel cell stack and its components. However, claim 1 is drawn to the contact material itself, not a contact layer or a reversible solid-oxide fuel cell stack. The additional “configured to” limitations of the claims describe the fuel cell or the contact layers, but do not further limit the contact material itself.
Regarding claim 8, 15 and 23, the cited art remains as applied to claim 1. Namba further teaches that the contact material may comprise chromium (paragraph [0021]), readable on the second doping agent. As to claim 15, the properties recited appear to be consistent with, i.e. anticipated by or obvious over, the materials taught by Namba for reasons previously described in the rejection of claim 1. As to claim 23, the “configured to form” limitations may be addressed as previously described in the rejection of claim 1, mutatis mutandis.
Regarding claim 6, 9 and 14, the cited art remains as applied to claim 1 or 8. Namba appears to teach conductivity values greater than 200 S/cm at 800 °C (Tables 1, 3, 8), but is silent as to the contact material an absence of secondary crystal structures when mixed and heated with electrode/interconnect material as claimed, with the stable crystal structure being a rhombohedral crystal structure
However, the tendency to form secondary crystal structures at high temperatures is a materials property dependent on the nature of the contact material. Since the cited art suggests the same or substantially the same materials, the same properties are expected absent any evidence to the contrary.
As to the claim 14 requirement that the stable structure is a rhombohedral crystal structure, the stable crystal structure of a material is a materials property, consequence of its chemical composition. Since the prior art suggests the same chemical composition, the same rhombohedral crystal structure would be expected.*
*As supporting evidence, consider Jacobs -US 2017/0207055- which teaches that various perovskites form different crystal structures based on their compositions, with rhombohedral type perovskite expected for compounds such as LaCoO3 and LaNiO3 (paragraph [0057]). Since the Namba teaches similar type perovskites a rhombohedral crystal structure would be expected.
Regarding claim 18, 21 and 22, the cited art remains as applied to claim 1. The requirement that the target thermal expansion matches that of an electrode or an interconnect material is a conditional limitation which does not directly limit the thermal expansion of the contact material to a particular value. The requirement that the contact material is configured to exhibit the properties recited in these claims is found to be implicitly taught by Namba since Namba teaches the same or substantially the same materials as previously described.
Claim(s) 7, 10, 12, 17 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over, Namba (US 2011/0236789).
Regarding claim 7, 10, 12, 17 and 20, the cited art remains as applied to claim 1, 8, 11, 15 and 18. The cited art does not expressly teach the claimed ratio of elements. However, as described in MPEP 2144.05 II, “[g]enerally, differences in concentration or temperature will not support the patentability of subject matter encompassed by the prior art unless there is evidence indicating such concentration or temperature is critical. “[W]here the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine experimentation… It is a settled principle of law that a mere carrying forward of an original patented conception involving only change of form, proportions, or degree, or the substitution of equivalents doing the same thing as the original invention, by substantially the same means, is not such an invention as will sustain a patent, even though the changes of the kind may produce better results than prior inventions.”
In this case, the cited art teaches the same general concept, and further suggests the relative amount of the various elements of the material may be adjusted in order to manipulate values such as conductivity and thermal expansion (e.g. Tables 1, 3, 8 provide different embodiments having varying properties achieved by subtly manipulating the concentration of the various elements contained in the material). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a skilled artisan at the time of invention to tinker with the relative contents of the perovskite in order to determine the suitable or desirable relative amounts. Accordingly, absent a showing of unexpected results, the claimed compound with the recited relative amounts is unpatentable over the cited art.
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.
Wood (US 2015/0270558) perovskite contact layer comprising lanthanum cobalt nickel oxide particles;
Wang (US 2016/0036063) -teaches a lanthanum-cobalt-nickel-copper oxide for SOFC applications;
Ding (US 2020/0075980) perovskites comprising cobalt and one or mor of Ni, Mn and Fe on the B sites;
Hiraiwa (US 2021/0066728) perovskites comprising elements selected from La, Fe, Co, Mn and Ni.
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 JEREMIAH R SMITH whose telephone number is (571)270-7005. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri: 9 AM-5 PM (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, Tiffany Legette-Thompson can be reached on (571)270-7078. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JEREMIAH R SMITH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1723
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