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
Applicant’s election without traverse of Species 1B, an all-solid-state battery comprising a cathode layer wherein a first gap between each of a pair of first side portions and the cathode active material layer is less than 0.3mm in the reply filed on 10/01/2025 is acknowledged.
Claim 4 is withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected Species 1A, an all-solid state battery comprising a protruding portion of a cathode active material layer extending onto the cathode uncoated portion having a width of 0 to 1 mm, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 08/08/2025.
Specification
The specification describes an Experimental Example 3 (Instant specification, [00127]) which appears identical to Comparative Example 1 (Instant specification, [00128]) and does not appear to be used in any Evaluation Examples of the battery ([00136-00141], pp. 43 Table 1). It is unclear whether the battery of Experimental Example 3 and Comparative Example 1 is intended to be an exemplary embodiment or a comparative example of the invention.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, fourth paragraph:
Subject to the following paragraph [i.e., the fifth paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112], a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends. Parent claim 1 is noted to require “a solid electrolyte layer between the cathode layer and the anode layer” (pp. 47 ln. 10). Claim 19 recites the limitation “the anode active material layer and the additional anode active material layer being contiguous with the cathode active material layer and the additional cathode active material layer, respectively” (pp. 51 ln. 14-17), with ‘contiguous’ defined as being “in direct contact with” in paragraph [0029] of the instant specification. Since claim 1 requires a solid electrolyte between the cathode and anode layer while claim 19 recites a cathode and anode layer being contiguous, i.e., in direct contact with each other without any apparent separation, dependent claim 19 appears to be indefinite due to failing to include all of the limitations of the claim upon which it depends under 35 U.S.C. 112d.
Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3,5,7,9-15 and 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Taniuchi et al. (US20210273235A1) in view of Tomura et al. (US20170207482A1) and Aoki et al. (US20220294018A1).
Regarding claim 1, Taniuchi discloses an all-solid secondary battery, comprising:
a cathode layer (“positive electrode”) including a cathode current collector (25, “positive electrode electric collector”) and a cathode active material layer (21) on at least one surface of the cathode current collector ([0044], FIG. 6), the cathode current collector having a cathode uncoated portion (22, “positive electrode tab”), composed of an exposed portion of the cathode current collector without the cathode active material layer disposed thereon ([0046-0067], FIG. 6);
an anode layer (“negative electrode”) including an anode current collector (“negative electrode electric collector”) and an anode active material layer (11) on the anode current collector ([0195]), the anode current collector having an anode uncoated portion (12, “negative electrode tab”) composed of an exposed portion of the anode current collector without the anode active material layer disposed thereon ([0196], FIG. 6);
a solid electrolyte layer (30) between the cathode layer and the anode layer (FIG. 6, [0193]).
Taniuchi discloses a positive electrode guide (241) on and in contact with the solid electrolyte layer (30) ([0114], FIG. 6) having a rectangular enclosure shape surrounding side surfaces of the cathode active material layer (21) ([0069], FIG. 1). The positive electrode guide may comprise an inorganic oxide to provide heat resistance ([0109]); a plain English definition of flame-retardant is “made or treated so as to resist burning” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary), wherein heat is a product of flame such that Taniuchi’s positive electrode guide (241) is broadly and reasonably interpreted as a flame-retardant inactive member (241).
The flame-retardant inactive member (241) further comprises a pair of first side portions corresponding to the cathode uncoated portion (22) and the anode uncoated portion (12) and a pair of second side portions (see Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 1, below).
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While Taniuchi envisions considerations of providing an electrically insulative tab covering layer (13, 23) on the cathode and anode uncoated portions (12, 22) to prevent short-circuiting between the uncoated portions and the opposing current collectors ([0165-0168], [0196], FIG. 6), and Taniuchi’s flame-retardant inactive member is envisioned to be electrically insulating ([0102-0103]), Taniuchi fails to disclose the use of a protruding portion of the flame-retardant inactive member’s first side portions corresponding to the cathode and anode uncoated portions for this purpose.
Tomura is directed to an all-solid secondary battery incorporating a similar inactive member (3ax, “insulation member”, Tomura [0067], FIGs. 8-10) contacting the solid electrolyte layer (2) and surrounding side surfaces of the cathode active material layer (3b) ([0067], FIGs. 8-10). Similarly, Tomura provides an insulating material at a protruding location (B) corresponding to the cathode uncoated portion (3at) to prevent short-circuits (FIG. 8 [0081-0082]); while Tomura teaches that providing a separate piece of insulating material (e.g., Taniuchi’s tab covering layer) different from the inactive member suitably fills this role, a skilled artisan may improve manufacturing efficiency by instead forming a protruding portion (B) of the electrically insulative inactive member (3ax) at a side portion corresponding to cathode uncoated portion (3at) ([0082], [0020], see Annotated Tomura FIG. 8 below).
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Thus, in seeking to improve manufacturing efficiency and to prevent short-circuits, it would be obvious before the effective filing date of the instant application for one having ordinary skill in the art to substitute Taniuchi’s tab-covering layer on the cathode uncoated portion with a side portion of the flame-retardant inactive member having a protruding portion corresponding to the cathode uncoated portion as taught by Tomura; such a substitution would be made with a reasonable expectation of success as Tomura teaches both methods of insulating the uncoated portions as substitutable equivalents to each other (MPEP 2144.06 II).
While Taniuchi modified in view of Tomura does not disclose a protruding portion corresponding to the anode uncoated portion as well, Taniuchi nonetheless envisions a need to insulate the anode uncoated portion (12) using tab covering layer (13) to prevent short-circuits (Taniuchi [0196], FIG. 6) such that a skilled artisan seeking the same improvements to manufacturing and safety would be motivated to replace the anode tab coating layer (13) with a protruding portion corresponding to the anode uncoated portion (12) by duplicating the structure of modified Taniuchi’s cathode protruding portion (B) (Annotated Tomura FIG. 8). Such a modification is obvious, known in the art, and would be made with a reasonable expectation of success; Aoki, directed to an all-solid secondary battery comprising an analogous inactive member (7, “insulating spacer”) surrounding the cathode active material layer (2) (Aoki [0049-0050]), FIG. 2) exemplifies a pair of first side portions having protruding portions corresponding to both cathode (1) and anode (5) uncoated portions (FIG. 2) for the same purpose of preventing short circuiting between layers ([0050-0051]).
Modified Taniuchi further discloses a pair of second side portions connected to the first side portions (Taniuchi [0045], Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 1), a width of each of the protruding portions (width A+B) being greater than a width of a remaining portion (width A) of each of the pair of the first side portions (Annotated Tomura FIG. 8, Tomura [0081-0082])
Regarding claim 2, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery as claimed in claim 1, wherein a length of each of the pair of second side portions is greater than a length of each of the pair of first side portions (Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 1)
Regarding claim 3, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery as claimed in claim 1. Taniuchi notes the occurrence of some amount of layer displacement during lamination such that the inner size of the flame-retardant inactive member (“positive electrode guide”) must be spaced apart from the side surfaces of the cathode active material layer by distance Δ to prevent layer overlap during lamination (Taniuchi [0008], [0212]), resulting in some amount of the cathode uncoated portion (26, “positive electrode active material layer unformed portion”) existing around the cathode active material layer ([0063-0069], FIG. 1).
As such, the process of lamination would inherently result in a protruded portion of the cathode active material layer being displaced (i.e., extending) onto the cathode uncoated portion by at least some amount of displacement distance Δ.
Regarding claims 5, 12, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery as claimed in claim 1. While Taniuchi does not explicitly quantify the distance of a first or second gap between the first and second side portions and the cathode active material layer respectively, Taniuchi discloses that the inner size of the first and second side portions (i.e., of inactive member 241) is equal to or greater than the outer size of the positive electrode active material (21) while accounting for the layer displacement of the battery to prevent overlap of the components (Taniuchi [0212-0216, FIG. 1); in other words, the first and second side portions are spaced from the positive electrode active material at the first and second gaps (Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 1) by at least 0 mm in order to prevent overlap.
Simultaneously, an ordinary skilled artisan would recognize that this gap, being a positive electrode active material layer unformed portion (26) ([0045] FIG. 1) which does not comprise any positive electrode active material, detracts from the volumetric energy density of the battery. A skilled artisan would thus reasonably avoid an excessively large first and second gap.
As such, in seeking to balance considerations of preventing overlap between components without excessively decreasing the volumetric energy density, it would be obvious before the effective filing date of the instant application for one having ordinary skill in the art to optimize a range of modified Taniuchi’s first and second gaps. While Taniuchi fails to explicitly specify a range of the first and second gap widths, given that Taniuchi’s minimum range is at least 0mm to prevent overlap, an ordinary skilled artisan would reasonably have utilized the claimed ranges of about 0 mm to 1 mm for the first gap and about 0 to 0.5mm for the second gap (claim 5) and between 0mm and 0.3mm for the first and second gaps (claim 12) through routine optimization under Taniuchi’s considerations with a reasonable expectation of success (MPEP 2144.05 II).
Regarding claim 7, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery as claimed in claim 1 wherein a width of each of the pair of second side portions is equal to the width of the remaining portion of each of the pair of first side portions (see Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 1 Showing Widths, below). Furthermore, as a width of the protruding portion is equivalent to a width of the remaining portion (A) combined with a width of portion (B) corresponding to the uncoated portions (Tomura FIG. 8, [0081]), a width of each of the pair of second side portions of the flame-retardant inactive member is necessarily smaller than the width of the protruding portion of the flame-retardant inactive member.
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Regarding claim 9, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery as claimed in claim 1, wherein the pair of first side portions and the pair of second side portions of the flame-retardant inactive member (241) are coupled to each other on four sides of a rectangular shape (Taniuchi [0069], FIG. 1), this shape being recognized as a rectangular enclosure shape including a rectangular gasket shape.
Regarding claims 10, 11, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery as claimed in claim 9, wherein each of the pair of first side portions includes two corner portions of the rectangular enclosure shape of the flame-retardant inactive member at opposite ends thereof, respectively (claim 10), wherein a width of each of the opposite ends is greater than a width of the remaining portion of each of the pair of first side portions excluding the protruding portion (claim 11) (see Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 1 Showing Corners, below)
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Regarding claim 13, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery as claimed in claim 1. As the outer size of the rectangular enclosure shape of the flame-retardant inactive member (241, 242) protrudes at (B) corresponding to the cathode and anode uncoated portion (22) (Tomura FIG. 8) which protrude beyond the size of the solid electrolyte layer (30) (Taniuchi [0167], FIG. 1), a size of the solid electrolyte layer is thus smaller than an outer size of the rectangular enclosure shape of the flame-retardant inactive member (see Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 3 below).
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Furthermore, as the flame-retardant inactive member (241) must maintain close contact with the adjoining solid electrolyte layer (30) ([0114]), the solid electrolyte layer would need to be at least as large as the inner size of the rectangular enclosure shape of the flame-retardant inactive member in order to be able to make any contact with the flame-retardant inactive member (see Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 1 Showing Sizes, below; different electrolyte layer sizes annotated with solid line rectangles).
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Regarding claim 14, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery as claimed in claim 13. Taniuchi discloses a desirability that the flame-retardant inactive member maintains firm, close contact with the adjoining solid electrolyte layer to maintain adhesion and anchor the layers during lamination (Taniuchi [0114], [0122-0124]). While Taniuchi does not explicitly specify a size of the solid electrolyte layer occupying the width of each of the pair of first and second side portions of the flame-retardant inactive member, an ordinary skilled artisan would recognize that increasing the percentage of width of the pair of first and second side portions occupied by the solid electrolyte layer (thus increasing the area, limited to a range of 0% to 100% of the surface area) would advantageously increase the layer adhesion.
Thus, in seeking to improve the adhesion of modified Taniuchi’s flame-retardant inactive member to the solid electrolyte layer, it would be obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art to optimize a size of the solid electrolyte layer within a range of 0-100% of a width of each of the pair of first and second side portions of the flame-retardant inactive member according to Taniuchi’s considerations, and in doing so, utilize a range of at least 50% or more of a width of the first and second side portions of the flame-retardant inactive member (MPEP 2144.05 II).
Regarding claim 15, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery as claimed in claim 1, wherein the flame- retardant inactive member includes a matrix (“non-woven fabric”) and a filler (“inorganic oxide”) (Taniuchi [0107], [0118])
Regarding claim 18, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery as claimed in claim 1, wherein the cathode layer and the anode layer are disposed such that the cathode uncoated portion (22) and the anode uncoated portion (12) are facing an opposite direction from each other (Taniuchi FIG. 6)
Regarding claim 19, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery as claimed in claim 1, wherein:
the cathode layer further includes an additional cathode active material layer (21), the cathode active material layer (21) and the additional cathode active material layer (21) being on opposite sides of the cathode current collector (25) (Taniuchi [0023-0024], see Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 6 below),
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the solid electrolyte layer includes a first solid electrolyte layer (30) and a second solid electrolyte layer (30), which are contiguous with the cathode active material layer (21) and the additional cathode active material layer (21), respectively ([0065], Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 6),
the anode layer includes an additional anode active material layer ([0227], Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 6).
Taniuchi discloses the occurrence of lithium metal electrocrystallization (i.e., lithium dendrite formation), particularly when an area of the anode active material layer is smaller than that of the cathode active material ([0201]). It is known in the art that lithium dendrites of the anode active material layer may potentially pierce the solid electrolyte layer to cause a short circuit by contacting (i.e., being contiguous with) the cathode active material layer, such that this occurrence is broadly and reasonably interpreted as the anode and additional anode active material layer being contiguous with the cathode active material layer and the additional cathode active material respectively as claimed.
Modified Taniuchi further discloses a first anode current collector and a second anode current collector, which are contiguous with the anode active material layer and the additional anode active material layer, respectively ([0227], Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 6);
the flame-retardant inactive member includes a first flame-retardant inactive member (241) and a second flame-retardant inactive member (242), which are disposed to surround side surfaces of the cathode active material layer and the additional cathode active material layer (21), respectively, between the first solid electrolyte layer and the second solid electrolyte layer (30) ([0051], Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 6), and
the cathode layer and the anode layer are disposed, such that the cathode uncoated portion of the cathode current collector (22), and anode uncoated portions of the first anode current collector and the second anode current collector (12) are facing opposite directions from each other (Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 6).
Regarding claim 20, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery as claimed in claim 19. Taniuchi further discloses an additional anode guide (“negative electrode guide”) provided around the anode active material layer (Taniuchi [0235-0240]), which may have a similar configuration to the flame-retardant inactive member (“positive electrode guide”) ([0240]) formed contiguous on a corresponding current collector ([0208]) as a laminated sheet ([0121]). The anode guide is formed from a finite list of insulative materials, where non-limiting examples of the insulative material (butyl rubber, silicone rubber, [0107]) are recognized as elastic materials in the instant specification (Instant specification, [00110]) such that an anode guide formed as a laminated sheet from these elastic materials is broadly and reasonably interpreted as an elastic sheet.
The skilled artisan would recognize the selection of a component material as necessary to produce Taniuchi’s anode guide, with Taniuchi’s finite set of suitable materials within the technical grasp of a skilled artisan such that it would be obvious before the effective filing date of the instant application for one having ordinary skill in the art to routinely explore selecting butyl rubber and silicone rubber with a reasonable expectation of successfully producing the anode guide, and in doing so, produce an elastic sheet (MPEP 2143 I. E).
Modified Taniuchi’s battery comprises a first and second anode active material layer (Annotated Taniuchi FIG. 6); the elastic sheets provided as anode guides with each anode active material layer are recognized as a first and second elastic sheet contiguous with the first and second anode current collector, respectively.
Claim(s) 6, 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Taniuchi et al. (US20210273235A1), Tomura et al. (US20170207482A1) and Aoki et al. (US20220294018A1) as applied to claim 1, further in view of Fujita et al. (US20180198170A1 cited in IDS filed 09/05/2023)
Regarding claims 6, 8, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery of claims 1 and 7. While Taniuchi’s flame-retardant inactive member has the function of contacting and adhering the adjacent solid electrolyte layers to anchor the layers (Taniuchi [0122-0124]), which would necessitate at least some measure of width to provide sufficient surface area to contact the solid electrolyte, modified Taniuchi fails to explicitly specify a width of the flame-retardant inactive member such that a width of each of the protruding portions is about 1 mm to about 4.5 mm (claim 6), the width of the remaining portion of each of the pair of first side portions is about 0.5 mm to about 4 mm, and the width of each of the pair of second side portions 40B is about 0.5 mm to about 3 mm.
Fujita is directed to an all-solid secondary battery wherein an end seal (26) is provided surrounding side surfaces of the cathode active material layer (12) (Fujita [0049], FIG. 1). While Fujita’s end seal (26) is primarily used to seal between the current collectors (20, 24) to protect the electrodes and solid electrolyte from moisture ([0049]) and is not identical in structure to Taniuchi’s flame-retardant inactive member, Fujita’s end seal is similarly both adhesive and insulative ([0052]), recognized as requiring adhesion to be maintained between surfaces in contact with the layer in order to maintain the seal such that an ordinary skilled artisan would consider application of some of Fujita’s teachings of the end seal to Taniuchi’s flame-retardant inactive member having adhesive properties.
Fujita further teaches optimizing a length of the end seal (26) within a range of 0.5 to 3 mm in order to suitably maintain the seal from moisture without excessively impacting the energy density of the battery ([0051]). As a skilled artisan would necessarily have to select at least some measure of flame-retardant inactive member width to provide sufficient surface area to contact and adhere to the solid electrolyte, where Fujita teaches a width of 0.5 to 3mm as a suitable balance to maintain adhesion and sealing between surfaces of a similar end seal without excessively impacting the energy density, it would be obvious before the effective filing date of the instant application for one having ordinary skill in the art to optimize a width of Taniuchi’s flame-retardant inactive member within a range of 0.5 to 3mm as taught by Fujita (MPEP 2144.05 II).
In doing so, an ordinary skilled artisan would provide a width of each of the pair of first and second side portions in a range of 0.5 to 3 mm, which falls within or matches the claimed ranges of 0.5 to 4mm for the first side portion and 0.5 to 3mm for the second side portion (claim 8)
While modified Taniuchi fails to explicitly indicate a length of the protruding portions, Tomura teaches that a length of portion B corresponding to the uncoated portions (Tomura FIG. 8) is preferably maintained within a range of 0.5b < B < 1.3b to balance short circuit prevention and ease of manufacture ([0081]), where b is a thickness of the battery element (8) excepting the cathode current collector ([0081], FIG. 10). Given the component layers of battery element (8) are typically from 1 μm to 100 μm thick ([0096-0097], [0101]), b for purposes of estimation is 0-0.5 mm and a corresponding length B is 0-0.7mm (FIG. 10). Since a width of each protruding portion is equal to width (B) + width (A) (Tomura FIG. 8), where A (flame-retardant inactive member thickness) is optimized between 0.5 to 3mm according to Fujita (see discussion above) and B is optimized between 0-0.7mm to balance short circuit prevention and ease of manufacture according to Tomura ([0081]), it would be obvious for one having ordinary skill in the art to optimize a width of each of Taniuchi’s protruding portion within a range of 0.5 to 3.7mm, and thus utilize a portion overlapping with the claimed range of width (1-4.5 mm, claim 6) between about 1 to 3.7mm (MPEP 2144.05 II).
Claim(s) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Taniuchi et al. (US20210273235A1), Tomura et al. (US20170207482A1) and Aoki et al. (US20220294018A1) as applied to claim 15, further in view of Jang et al. (US20220190346A1).
Regarding claim 16, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery as claimed in claim 15, wherein the matrix includes a substrate, the substrate includes a first fibrous material, the first fibrous material being an insulating material including pulp fibers (“cellulose”, [0107]).
While Taniuchi further discloses the inclusion of glass and ceramic which are recognized as reinforcing materials being flame retardant-materials ([0107-0109]), Taniuchi does not explicitly specify the use of fibrous variants of these materials in the inactive member.
Jang is directed to an anode-protecting layer for an all-solid secondary battery (Jang [0052], [0058], FIG. 2). While Jang’s anode-protecting layer is provided for a different purpose (lithium metal dendrite prevention, [0062-0064]) from Taniuchi’s flame-retardant inactive member, Jang’s anode-protecting layer is capable of maintaining good contact with the neighboring anode current collector/active material layer and solid electrolyte layer ([0069-0070]), this being similar in function to Taniuchi’s flame-retardant inactive member which anchors the cathode current collector and solid electrolyte layer (Taniuchi [0122-0124]). Jang further teaches a suitability of including glass fiber and ceramic fiber as reinforcement materials in the anode-protecting layer (Jang [0028-0029]). Thus, it would be obvious before the effective filing date of the instant application for one having ordinary skill in the art to select glass fiber and ceramic fiber as a specific form of the glass and ceramic materials as a reinforcing material for modified Taniuchi’s flame-retardant inactive member; such a selection would be made with a reasonable expectation of success as Taniuchi envisions a material compatibility of glass and ceramic and Jang teaches a suitability of using glass fiber and ceramic fiber in an anode-protecting layer being similarly able to maintain contact between a solid electrolyte layer and a current collector (MPEP 2144.07).
Claim(s) 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Taniuchi et al. (US20210273235A1), Tomura et al. (US20170207482A1) and Aoki et al. (US20220294018A1) as applied to claim 15, further in view of Kengo et al. (WO2019103008A1; see attached machine translation)
Regarding claim 17, modified Taniuchi discloses the all-solid secondary battery as claimed in claim 15. Taniuchi discloses the inclusion of an electrically insulating inorganic oxide as a filler in the flame- retardant inactive member ([0107-0109]), but fails to further disclose the use of a filler being a moisture getter including a metal hydroxide selected from among Mg(OH)2, Fe(OH)3, Sb(OH)3, Sn(OH)4, TI(OH)3, Zr(OH)4, Al(OH)3.
Kengo is directed to an analogous all-solid secondary battery wherein a flame-retardant inactive member (32, “insulating layer”) is provided on sides of cathode active material layer (30, “second active material layer”) on and solid electrolyte layer (10) (Kengo [0045-0047], FIG. 3), and further teaches Mg(OH)2 and Al(OH)3 as suitable insulating materials (i.e., fillers) in the flame-retardant inactive member ([0048]), these materials being recognized as moisture getters as recited in the instant claim.
Thus, it would be obvious before the effective filing date of the instant application for one having ordinary skill in the art to select Mg(OH)2 and Al(OH)3 for use as an insulating material (i.e., a filler) in modified Taniuchi’s flame-retardant inactive member, wherein the filler is a moisture getter including a metal hydroxide being either of these species as taught by Kengo. Such a selection would be made with a reasonable expectation of success as Kengo discloses a suitability of selecting Mg(OH)2 and Al(OH)3 as insulating materials in a flame-retardant inactive member (MPEP 2144.07).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EVERETT T CHOI whose telephone number is (703)756-1331. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 11:00-8:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jonathan G Leong can be reached on (571) 270 1292. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/E.C./Examiner, Art Unit 1751
/JONATHAN G LEONG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1751 2/5/2026