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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 3-2-2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 4, 6-8 and 10-14 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of a negative electrode comprising a negative electrode active material layer comprising an active material, a conductive material having a particle shaped carbon as claimed in claim 4 and a lithium titanium dioxide comprising Li4Ti6O12 where x=0 and z=0 in the reply filed on 7-14-2025 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that it would not be a burden to search the different possibilities. This is not found persuasive because lithium titanium oxide has many different formulas and can comprise additional metal(s) and since the active material is not cited in the independent claim there are many possibilities for the negative active material.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claims 5 and 9 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected species, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Applicant timely traversed the restriction (election) requirement in the reply filed on 7-14-2025. Claim 9 is withdrawn because the subscripts x=0 and y=6 are not allowed in claim 9.
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, 4, 7, 10-11, 13-14 and 8, 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pan et al. (WO 2009/103202) or Baek Woon-Gyu et al. (KR 10-2228654, machine translation) in view of Kim et al. (US 2016/0293961). Pan et al. teaches in comparison Example 1, a negative electrode active material comprising graphite [teaching claim 10], conductive carbon black, Li4Ti5O12 and SBR in a weight ratio of 100:4:1.4:8 [teaching 1.4/100=1.4 wt% of the lithium titanium oxide, claims 1 and 8 ]. Woon-Gyu et al. teaches a negative active material for a lithium secondary battery comprising a composite of lithium titanium oxide (LTO), a silicon-containing material and crystalline carbon. Woon-Gyu et al. teaches that the lithium titanium oxide is represented by Li4Ti5O12, LiTi2O4, Li2TiO3 or Li2Ti3O7 and is a material having excellent rate capability and serves to improve high rate charge/discharge characteristics of a battery and improve high-speed charging performance. Woon-Gyu et al. teaches that the lithium titanium oxide (10) is preferably 0.1-10 wt%; silicon-containing material (20) is preferably 3-60 wt% and the crystalline carbon (30) used may be graphite, carbon nanotubes (CNT), etc. in amount of 30-95 wt% [teaching claim 10], Woon-Gyu et al. teaches that the conductive material may be Denka black, carbon black, acetylene black, etc. Woon-Gyu et al. teaches a negative material comprising 1 wt% of Li4Ti5O12 nanoparticles (LTO NPs) [teaching 1 wt% of the lithium titanium oxide, claims 1, 13 and 15], 35 wt% of Si nanoparticles, and 59 wt% of graphite flakes and further adding 0.5 wt% of acetylene black as the conductive material [teaching 1.5 wt% of the lithium titanium oxide and conductive material, claims 7-8, 14 and 16]. Pan et al. and Woon-Gyu al. teaches the claimed invention as explained above but does not specifically teach that the particle-shaped carbon has a particle diameter of 5-700 nm. Kim et al. teaches in [0012 and 0014], that the conductive material may be spherically shaped and can have a diameter in a range of 10 nm to 50 nm. Kim et al. teaches [0018], that the conductive material may be LITX200, acetylene black, Denka black, carbon black, etc. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use particle-shaped carbon having a particle diameter of 10 nm to 50 nm because Kim et al. teaches that this is known and since it has been held that where general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges involves only routine skill in the art. In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6 and 12 are 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Laura Weiner whose telephone number is (571)272-1294. The examiner can normally be reached 9 am-5 pm EST M-F.
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/LAURA S. WEINER/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1723
/Laura Weiner/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1723
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