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 .
Drawings
Figure 1. should be designated by a legend such as --Prior Art-- because only that which is old is illustrated. See MPEP § 608.02(g). Corrected drawings in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. The replacement sheet(s) should be labeled “Replacement Sheet” in the page header (as per 37 CFR 1.84(c)) so as not to obstruct any portion of the drawing figures. If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Election/Restrictions
Claims 26-30 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected Invention II there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 12/03/2025
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 1,3,5,7 and 15-18, 20-22, and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (KR-100669338-B1) hereinafter referred to as ‘Lee’, in view of (JP-2008016329-A) hereinafter referred to as ‘Ohara’
Lee teaches an electrode for a battery (Lee, negative electrode, 1, Fig. 1), comprising: a support ( Lee, polymer film support, 4, Fig. 1); and a conductive coating layer (Lee, metal layers, 5, Fig. 1) formed on at least one surface of the support (Lee, “The present invention is a lithium which relates to a lithium secondary battery comprising a lithium secondary battery negative electrode”, see pg. 1)(see annotated figure below as second figure and instant application on top as a point of comparison).
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Lee does not teach that the support is porous.
Ohara teaches that the support is porous (Ohara, “The lithium secondary battery negative electrode material of the present invention is characterized by comprising a porous support having a porous structure”, pg. 1)
Ohara teaches that the porosity allows for the surface area to be increased for the negative electrode active material and reducing the internal resistance (Ohara, “With the above configuration, the surface area of the negative electrode is increased, the internal resistance of the battery is reduced, the heat generation and the voltage loss at the time of a large current are reduced, and therefore the charge / discharge capacity can be expanded. That is, a high-rate characteristic can be obtained.”, pg. 1 )
Lee and Ohara are analogous as they are both of the same field of battery materials.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the polymer layer as taught in Lee with the porosity as taught in Ohara in order to improve the cycling and reduce the internal resistance.
Regarding Claim 3,
Modified Lee teaches the electrode according to claim 1, wherein the porous support comprises an elastic material (Lee, “The polymer film on the support is charged and discharged that the buffer action according to the expansion and contraction of the active material, it is desirable to have an elasticity”, pg. 2)
Regarding Claim 5,
Modified Lee teaches the electrode according to claim 1, wherein the porous support is a porous polymer film or porous polymer non-woven fabric that has a plurality of pores and is elastically deformable (Ohara, “The lithium secondary battery negative electrode material of the present invention is characterized by comprising a porous support having a porous structure.” Pg. 1) (Lee, “The polymer film on the support is charged and discharged that the buffer action according to the expansion and contraction of the active material, it is desirable to have an elasticity”, pg. 2)
Regarding Claim 7,
Modified Lee teaches the electrode according to claim 1, wherein the porous support further comprises at least one of ceramics, metal, or a metal alloy in a polymer having a porous structure (Ohara, “Moreover, it is preferable that the porous support is formed of a metal having an oxidation potential equivalent to or higher than that of copper. With this configuration, the corrosion resistance of the porous support can be maintained when incorporated in a battery.” pg. 2)
Regarding Claim 15,
Modified Lee teaches the electrode according to claim 1, wherein: the electrode is a negative electrode for a battery (Lee, negative electrode, 1, Fig. 1), the negative electrode comprises the conductive coating layer (Lee, metal layers, 5, Fig. 1) and a negative electrode active material layer (Lee, polymer film support, 4, Fig. 1) and the negative electrode active material layer is formed on the conductive coating layer by plating through a charging process of the battery and is stripped from a surface of the conductive coating layer through a discharging process of the battery (Ohara, “Lithium simply elutes and precipitates repeatedly. For this reason, the negative electrode material of the secondary battery which can maintain a high-rate characteristic over many cycles of discharge / charge can be provided”, pg. 1).
Regarding Claim 16,
Modified Lee teaches the electrode according to claim 1, wherein the conductive coating layer is a metal or metal oxide layer formed on a surface of the porous support or a surface of each pore formed in the porous support by coating (Lee, “a metal layer formed on one or both surfaces of the polymer film support and having a thickness of 300nm to 2㎛.” Pg. 2 )
Regarding Claim 17,
Modified Lee teaches the electrode according to claim 1, wherein the conductive coating layer comprises a metal having electrical conductivity (Lee, “The metal layer may be formed on one side or both sides of the polymer film support, and preferably include at least one metal selected from the group consisting of Ni, Ti, and Cu, and more preferably Cu or Ni.”, pg. 3) (The examiner notes that copper is conductive).
Regarding Claim 18,
Modified Lee teaches the electrode according to claim 1, wherein the conductive coating layer comprises a lithium affinity material, and wherein the lithium affinity material is at least one selected from the group consisting of Au, Ag, Fe, Mg, Al, Ti, Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, In, Sn, Pt, Co, Mn, Li, Bi, Si, CuO,ZnO, MnO, and CoO (Lee, “The metal layer may be formed on one side or both sides of the polymer film support, and preferably include at least one metal selected from the group consisting of Ni, Ti, and Cu, and more preferably Cu or Ni.”, pg. 3)
Regarding Claim 20,
Modified Lee teaches the electrode according to claim 1, wherein the conductive coating layer has a thickness of 100 nm to 5 um (lee, “metal layer formed on one or both surfaces of the polymer film support and having a thickness of 300nm to 2㎛.”, pg. 2)
The examiner takes note of the fact that the prior art range of 300nm to 2 μm broadly overlaps the claimed range of 100 nm to 5 μm . Absent any additional and more specific information in the prior art, a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Peterson, 315F.3d 1325, 1330, 65 USPQ2d 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2003). MPEP 2144.05.
Regarding Claim 21,
Modified Lee teaches a lithium secondary battery comprising the electrode according to any one of claim 1 as a negative electrode (Lee, “The present invention relates to a negative electrode for a lithium secondary battery and a lithium secondary battery including the same, wherein the negative electrode”, see Abstract)
Regarding Claim 22,
Modified Lee teaches an all-solid-state battery comprising the electrode according to claim 1 as a negative electrode (Lee, “The solid electrolyte is a polyethylene oxide polymer electrolyte or a polymer electrolyte containing at least one polyorganosiloxane side chain or polyoxyalkylene side chain, Li 2 S-SiS 2 , Li 2 S-GeS 2 , Li 2 SP 2 S 5 , Li Sulfide electrolytes such as 2 SB 2 S 3 , inorganic compound electrolytes such as Li 2 S-SiS 2 -Li 3 PO 4 , Li 2 S-SiS 2 -Li 3 SO 4, and the like can be preferably used..”, see pg. 6).
Regarding Claim 24,
Modified Lee teaches the all-solid-state battery according to claim 22, wherein the conductive coating layer is disposed on a surface of the porous supportmetal layer, 5, See Fig. 1)(see annotated figure below).
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Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (KR-100669338-B1) hereinafter referred to as ‘Lee’, in view of (JP-2008016329-A) hereinafter referred to as ‘Ohara’, as evidenced by ‘Poisson's Ratio’ hereinafter referred to as ‘Instron’
Regarding Claim 14,
Modified Lee teaches the electrode according to claim 1, wherein the porous support is configured to have a thickness of the porous support is decreased in a pressurization direction, and an area of the porous support is increased in a direction perpendicular to the pressurization direction when a pressure is applied (Lee, “a polymer with elasticity and using the film to exhibit a buffering action with respect to the volume change of the active material according to the charging and discharging”, pg. 2) (Lee, “The polymer film on the support is charged and discharged that the buffer action according to the expansion and contraction of the active material, it is desirable to have an elasticity”, pg. 2).
(The examiner notes that inherent to the material being elastic would be the ability to deform in on direction while expanding in the other direction, due to elastic materials having a high Poisson’s ratio, as evidenced by ‘Instrom’, which states, “Most materials have a Poisson’s ratio between 0 and 0.5, with highly elastic materials like rubber commonly having a Poisson’s ratio around 0.5. Most metals, such as stainless steel, commonly have a Poisson’s ratio around 0.3.” and “Poisson's ratio is the ratio of expansion along one axis to contraction along the opposite axis when a material is subjected to tensile or compressive forces. Applying tensile strain to a rubber band, for example, causes it to elongate axially and contract in the transverse direction”, see MPEP 2163.07(a))
Claims 11 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (KR-100669338-B1) hereinafter referred to as ‘Lee’, in view of (JP-2008016329-A) hereinafter referred to as ‘Ohara’, in further view of ‘The compression behavior, microstructure evolution and properties variation of three kinds of commercial battery separators under compression load’ hereinafter referred to as ‘Ding’
Regarding Claim 11,
Modified Lee does not teach the electrode according to claim 1, wherein the porous support has a pressurization-based elastic strain of 30% or less, calculated by the following Equation [Equation 1] the pressurization-based elastic strain (%) =being calculated as (thickness of the porous support before pressurization - thickness of the porous support under 20 MPa pressurization)/_thickness of the porous support before pressurization} x 1004.
Ding teaches wherein the porous support has a pressurization-based elastic strain of 30% or less, calculated by the following Equation 1: the pressurization-based elastic strain (%) =being calculated as (thickness of the porous support before pressurization - thickness of the porous support under 20 MPa pressurization)/_thickness of the porous support before pressurization} x 1004 (see annotated figure below).
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Ding teaches that a pressures greater than 20 MPa the strain of the materials was shown to have a higher Gurley value which was associated with higher internal resistance (Ding, “In addition, the Gurley value had a strict negative with air permeability, namely a lower Gurley value corresponded to a higher air permeability and smaller the internal resistance”, see Results and Discussion)(Ding, “In the case of low strain (σ<35%), Gurley value of the three types of separators had been maintained at a low level (<600s), but the porosity of separators had almost halved. With the further increase of strain (σ>40%), Gurley value increases rapidly.”, see Results and Discussion)
Lee and Ding are analogous as they are both of the same field of polymer separators for battery cells.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the polymer as taught in Lee to have a certain elasticity below 30% as taught in Ding, in order to keep the internal resistance in the battery low.
Regarding Claim 12,
Modified Lee does not teach the electrode according to claim 1, wherein the porous support has a pressurization-based thickness retention rate of 70% or more, calculated by the following Equation 2: pressurization-based thickness retention rate (%)=being calculated as (thickness of the porous support after pressurization/thickness of the porous support before pressurization) x 100%.
Ding teaches wherein the porous support has a pressurization-based thickness retention rate of 70% or more, calculated by the following Equation 2: pressurization-based thickness retention rate (%)=being calculated as (thickness of the porous support after pressurization/thickness of the porous support before pressurization) x 100%.
(Ding, “In addition, the Gurley value had a strict negative with air permeability, namely a lower Gurley value corresponded to a higher air permeability and smaller the internal resistance”, see Results and Discussion)(Ding, “In the case of low strain (σ<35%), Gurley value of the three types of separators had been maintained at a low level (<600s), but the porosity of separators had almost halved. With the further increase of strain (σ>40%), Gurley value increases rapidly.”, see Results and Discussion)(The examiner notes that if the strain is 30%, then by the standard formula if it were (thickness of the porous support after pressurization/thickness of the porous support before pressurization) x 100%, it would be 130%)(see annotated figure below)
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Lee and Ding are analogous as they are both of the same field of polymer separators for battery cells.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the polymer as taught in Lee to have a certain elasticity below 130% as taught in Ding, in order to keep the internal resistance in the battery low.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SEAMUS PATRICK MCNULTY whose telephone number is (703)756-1909. The examiner can normally be reached Monday- Friday 8:00am to 5pm.
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/S.P.M./Examiner, Art Unit 1752
/NICHOLAS A SMITH/Supervisory Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1752