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 .
Election/Restrictions
Claims 1-7 and 15 withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected Groups I, drawn to an anode active material, and III, drawn to a lithium secondary battery comprising an anode active material, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Applicant timely traversed the restriction (election) requirement in the reply filed on 6 August 2025.
Claim Objections
Claim 8 is objected to because of the following informalities: “performing heat treatment to for a shell” should read “performing heat treatment to form a shell”. Appropriate correction is required.
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 8-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Moon et al. (US 20190233294 A1), hereinafter Moon, in view of Oh et al. (KR 20190108814 A), hereinafter Oh.
Regarding claims 8 and 9, Moon teaches a method of preparing an anode active material, in this case a negative active material [0080], the method comprising: (a) coating a surface of a needle-shaped silicon nanoparticle and a surface of a plate-shaped silicon nanoparticle [0287] with a first crystalline carbon, in this case highly crystalline graphene flakes [0290], that differ in aspect ratio to prepare a core. In this case the needle-shaped particles are taught to have a length of about 100 nm to 160 nm and a thickness of about 10 nm to 100 nm [0181], which equates to an aspect ratio range of 1 to 16 and overlaps with the claimed range of 6 to 250 of instant claim 9, and the plate-shaped particles are taught to have a length of about 125 nm and a thickness of about 40 nm, which equates to an aspect ratio of 3.125 and lies within the claimed range of 1 to 6 of instant claim 9. In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990). The method further comprises (b) adding a precursor of amorphous carbon to the prepared core, in this case the first layer of the first carbonaceous coating layer including amorphous carbon [0118]; and (c) adding second crystalline carbon, in this case the second carbonaceous coating layer including a crystalline carbon [0118], and performing heat treatment to prepare a silicon composite in which the entire surface or a partial surface of the shell is provided with the second crystalline carbon, in this case the carbonaceous coating layer is taught to entirely or partially cover the total surface area of the silicon composite [0087]. Moon is silent as to performing heat treatment in between the addition of the amorphous carbon and the addition of the second crystalline carbon. However, Oh teaches a negative electrode active material comprising a core containing first crystalline carbon and silicon particle and a coating layer containing amorphous carbon located on a surface of the core that gets heat treated before adding a second crystalline carbon (Oh pg. 9, ¶ 4).
Moon and Oh are both considered to be equivalent to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of silicon-carbon composites coated with amorphous and crystalline carbon. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method Moon to perform heat treatment in between the addition of the amorphous carbon and the addition of the second crystalline carbon, as taught by Oh. Doing so would have carbonized the petroleum pitch and converted it into hard carbon (Oh pg. 9, ¶ 4), making the active material capable of inserting or desorbing lithium (Oh pg. 2, ¶ 5).
Regarding claim 10, modified Moon teaches the method of claim 8. Moon does not specify the weight ratio of the needle-shaped silicon nanoparticles and the plate-shaped silicon nanoparticles. However, Moon teaches pulverizing needle-like silicon to obtain plate-shaped and needle-shaped silicon particles. One of ordinary skill in the art would expect this method to produce a relatively close weight ratio of each particle, such as about 50:50, without any reason to produce one more than the other. This lies within the claimed range of 30:70 to 70:30. In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990). Further, "[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." In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456, 105 USPQ 233, 235 (CCPA 1955).
Regarding claims 11 and 12, modified Moon teaches the method of claim 8. Moon further teaches the first crystalline carbon, in this case the first and second carbon flakes, being about 5 to 30 parts by weight based on 100 parts by weight of the silicon [0107]. This lies within the claimed range of 0.1 to 80 parts by weight of instant claim 12. Moon also teaches the weight ratio of the first crystalline carbon to the carbon of the carbonaceous coating layer as being about 10:1 to about 1:0.9 [0095]. This would produce a range of .5 to 27 parts by weight of carbonaceous coating layer based on 100 parts by weight of silicon. This range would include the carbon for both layers of the two-layer carbonaceous layer. Therefore, the amount of the second crystalline carbon would lie within the claimed 0.1 to 80 parts by weight of instant claim 12 and the amount of amorphous carbon would overlap with the claimed range of 5 to 30 parts of instant claim 11. In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990).
Regarding claim 13, modified Moon teaches the method of claim 8. Moon further teaches the silicon composite having an average particle size of about 1 μm to about 30 μm [0119]. This overlaps with the claimed range of 5 to 50 μm. In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990).
Regarding claim 14, modified Moon teaches the method of claim 8. Moon further teaches the silicon composite having a porosity of greater than 0 to about 60% [0072]. This overlaps with the claimed range of 0.1% to 40%. In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DUSTIN KENWOOD VAN KIRK whose telephone number is (703)756-4717. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9am-5pm EST.
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/DUSTIN VAN KIRK/Examiner, Art Unit 1722
/ANCA EOFF/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1722