DETAILED ACTION
The following Office action concerns Patent Application Number 18/019,921. Claims 1-12 are pending in the application.
Claims 9-12 have been withdrawn from consideration as being drawn to non-elected inventions.
Election/Restrictions
A restriction requirement was sent to the Applicant on August 20, 2025. The Applicant was required to elect among several groups of inventions. The Applicant responded to the restriction requirement on October 10, 2025 and elected Group I, claims 1-9. Since the election was not made with traverse, it is treated as being made without traverse. Accordingly, claims 9-12 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a non-elected invention.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 7 is allowable over the closest prior art of Okuda et al in view of Wang et al. The references do not teach a second sintering temperature of 760-900 °C.
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 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 1-6, 8, 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Okuda et al (US 2002/0110518) in view of Wang et al (US 2018/0248179).
Okuda et al teaches a method of making a positive electrode active material, comprising a first mixing step of mixing lithium source with a transition metal source (par. 41). The transition metals include nickel and cobalt (par. 41, 72). The raw materials are powders (par. 45). The molar ratio of lithium to Nickel and Cobalt is 0.95:1 (par. 72). The molar ratio of nickel to all transition metals is 0.8 (par. 72).
The method further includes a first firing (sintering) step in an oxygen atmosphere (par. 46-47). The product is pulverized, which implies that it is solid (par. 72). The first product is mixed with 0.05 mole additional lithium raw material to form a second mixture (par. 49, 73). The resulting molar ratio of lithium to transition metals is 1:1. The second mixture is fired (sintered) in an oxygen atmosphere to form the product (par. 53). The product is pulverized to form powder (par. 73). Powder necessarily contains at least one single particle.
Okuda et al does not teach cooling the product after firing. However, Wang et al teaches a method of making a cathode active material comprising sintering a mixture of raw materials followed by cooling (par. 19, 21). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art the combine the cooling of Wang et al with method of Okuda et al in order to facilitate further safe handling and mixing of the first sintered product.
Regarding claims 2-6, Okuda et al teaches that the molar ratio of additional lithium to transition metal in the second mixing step is 0.05:1 (par. 73). The transition metal raw materials include cobalt and manganese (par. 41). The nickel source includes nickel hydroxide (par. 43). The cobalt source includes cobalt hydroxide (par. 43). The manganese source includes manganese dioxide (par. 43). The molar ratio of cobalt and manganese, respectively, to the total transition metals includes 0.05 (5 %) (par. 30). The lithium source includes lithium hydroxide (par. 42).
Regarding claim 8, Okuda et al does not require washing. Okuda et al teaches complete firing of the mixture, which implies no unreacted lithium or lithium impurity (par. 53). Okuda et al does not require the composition to contain lithium impurities.
Regarding claim 9, Okuda et al is silent regarding the size of the particles. However, Wang et al teaches an active material particle size of 1-20 µm (par. 14). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by design need to combine the particle size of Wang et al with the method of Okuda et al in order to obtain active material particles having a known suitable size for a lithium battery.
Examiner’s Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to William Young whose telephone number is (571) 270-5078. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM to 5 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Angela Brown-Pettigrew, can be reached at 571-272-2817. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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