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 .
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.
Specification
The specification and drawings have been reviewed and no clear informalities or objections have been noted.
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- is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kerner (“Ionic liquid based lithium battery electrolytes: fundamental benefits of utilising both TFSI and FSI anions?” Phys Chem, Chem Phys. 2015, 17, 19569-19581) in view of Ando (US 2010/0035150).
Regarding claim 1, Kerner discloses an alkali metal ion conductor (such as an electrolyte, see abstract), comprising an alkali metal salt, wherein
the alkali metal salt comprises a imidazolium cation (EMI or 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium, see page 19570 under heading 2.1), an alkali metal ion (such as lithium in LiTFSI, as mentioned in paragraph 2.1 on page 19570 and see Table 2 which illustrates several examples Li as a cation in a salt), a first sulfonylamide anion (such as TFSI, as listed in the final example of Table 2 which lists LiFSI0.2EMITFSI0.8) and a second sulfonylamide anion different from the first sulfonylamide anion (the second sulfonylamide anion is FSI, as in the final example of Table which lists LiFSI0.2EMITFSI0.8.
Kerner teaches two cations in the salt, including Li+ and EMI+ and goes on to teach that well known cations include members of the pyrrolidinium famly which include quaternary ammonium compounds). However, Kerner does not explicitly teach a quaternary ammonium cation in the salt.
Ando also discloses compositions for an electrolyte (see abstract).
Ando, like Kerner, teaches the generation of an ionic liquid to be utilized in an electrolyte and teaches that there are many well known cation/anion combinations to achieve such an ionic liquid (see paragraph 69). Well known cations include EMI along with diethyl-methyl-2-methoxyethyl-ammonium (DEME, see paragraph 69).
As such, seeing Kerner contemplates the use of quaternary ammonium cations in the ionic liquid and seeing that Ando discloses several well known cations (including EMI and quaternary ammonium cations) and are known to be used in ionic liquids for batteries, modifying the EMI of Kerner to include the quaternary ammonium cation of Ando would have been an obvious modification to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. Such a modification is nothing more than a simple substitution of one known ionic liquid cation for another to yield entirely predictable results.
Regarding claim 2, Kerner further discloses:
the first sulfonylamide anion is a bistrifluoromethanesulfonylamide anion (such as TFSI in LiFSI0.2EMITFSI0.8 which is disclosed as the final example in Table 2 on page 19573) and
the second sulfonylamide anion is at least one of a fluorosulfonylamide anion and a fluorosulfonyl (trifluoromethanesulfonyl) amide anion (such as FSI in LiFSI0.2EMITFSI0.8 which is disclosed as the final example in Table 2 on page 19573).
Regarding claim 3, Kerner further discloses the molar ratio of the first sulfonylamide anion to the second sulfonylamide anion (the first sulfonylamide anion/the second sulfonylamide anion) is 1 or more (see LiFSI0.2EMITFSI0.8 which discloses a ratio of 4 as TFSI is 0.8 and FSI is 0.2)
Regarding claim 5, Kerner, as modified above, further discloses the quaternary ammonium cation has a methyl group (such as the cation diethyl-methyl-2-methoxyethyl-ammonium (DEME, see paragraph 69 of Ando).
Regarding claim 6, Kerner further discloses the alkali metal ion is a lithium ion (as it taught in the composition LiFSI0.2EMITFSI0.8 of Kerner, where Li is a cation).
Regarding claim 7, Kerner teaches throughout the document that this electrolyte is to be utilized in an electrolyte of a battery which includes an anode and a cathode on either side of the the electrolyte (see section 3.2 which discloses a battery that has a separator filled with the disclosed electrolyte and includes electrodes).
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) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kerner (“Ionic liquid based lithium battery electrolytes: fundamental benefits of utilising both TFSI and FSI anions?” Phys Chem, Chem Phys. 2015, 17, 19569-19581) in view of Ando (US 2010/0035150) in view of Park (WO 2015030407 A1 with references made to the machine translation).
Regarding claim 4, Kerner discloses the alkali metal ion conductor comprises the alkali metal salt (as described above in the rejection of claim 1),
the first sulfonylamide anion is a bistrifluoromethanesulfonylamide anion (such as TFSI in LiFSI0.2EMITFSI0.8 which is disclosed as the final example in Table 2 on page 19573),
the second sulfonylamide anion is at least one of a fluorosulfonylamide anion and a fluorosulfonyl (trifluoromethanesulfonyl) amide anion (such as FSI in LiFSI0.2EMITFSI0.8 which is disclosed as the final example in Table 2 on page 19573), and
the molar ratio of the first sulfonylamide anion to the second sulfonylamide anion (the first sulfonylamide anion/the second sulfonylamide anion) is 4 or more (see LiFSI0.2EMITFSI0.8 which discloses a ratio of 4 as TFSI is 0.8 and FSI is 0.2).
Kerner teaches a battery that is assembled with the discloses salt/ionic liquid, but does not go into detail regarding the type of electrolyte that is utilized in the battery. More specifically, Kerner does not teach the inclusion of a sulfide solid electrolyte.
Park also discloses a battery (see Abstract).
Park teaches utilizing a solid sulfide electrolyte that is impregnated with an ionic liquid containing an anion TFSA (lines 96-105). Park teaches utilizing a solid electrolyte with the ionic liquid/salt as doing so improves the interfacial conductivity between the solid electrolyte and the electrodes (lines 80-71 and 109-114) in addition to the benefits of using a solid electrolyte which do not carry the risk of flammability like liquid electrolytes (lines 55-58).
As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to add the sulfide electrolyte of Park to the battery of Kerner in order to improve the interfacial conductivity between the solid electrolyte and the electrodes in addition to minimizing the flammability risk of the battery.
Relevant Prior Art
US 2013/0202973 – discloses the use of multiple ionic liquids with multiple anions in the liquid but stops short of disclosing multiple cations in addition to more than one type of sulfonylamide anion.
AU2010346157 B2 – Discloses multiple anions in a non-aqueous electrolyte and teaches that one of the anions is a sulfonylamide, but does not teach that there is another sulfonylamide anion that is different than the first.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW J MERKLING whose telephone number is (571)272-9813. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 8am-6pm.
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/MATTHEW J MERKLING/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1725