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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on March 29, 2023 has been considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by U.S Pre-Grant Publication 2024/0063507 A1, hereinafter Morimoto.
Regarding claim 1, Morimoto teaches a solid electrolyte sheet (‘solid electrolyte layer’ [0038]) comprising:
a porous base material; (‘the support body according to the present invention is included in the solid electrolyte layer of the lithium secondary battery and is constituted by a non-woven fabric having air permeability’ [0037])
a solid electrolyte material filling voids in the base material; (‘the solid electrolyte is filled into the interior of such a support body’ [0046])
and a binder adhering to the base material ([0060]), wherein when 100% by mass is taken to mean an entirety of the solid electrolyte sheet, content of the binder is equal to or higher than 10% by mass. (‘the amount of binder fibers contained in the support body is more preferably 25 to 75 mass%’ [0065]). Because each value of Morimoto’s range reads on the instant claimed invention Morimoto’s range anticipates the claimed range.
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 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S Pre-Grant Publication 2024/0063507 A1, hereinafter Morimoto as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of U.S Pre-Grant Publication 2023/0238573 A1, hereinafter Doi.
Regarding claim 2, Morimoto teaches an all-solid state battery with a support body used for forming a solid electrolyte layer between a positive electrode and a negative electrode [0036]. The support body consists of a porous base material, solid electrolyte material and 25-75 mass % binder fibers [0065]. Each positive and negative electrode contain a positive and negative active electrode material, respectively ([0091] – [0094]). However, Morimoto fails to teach a Li-based or Si-based negative electrode active material.
It is well known in the art to use Li-based and Si-based negative electrode active materials. For example, Doi teaches an all-solid lithium-ion secondary battery with a positive electrode layer, a solid electrolyte layer, and a negative electrode layer in that order ([0020] – [0022]). The solid electrolyte layer contains a solid electrolyte material and 3 mass % or more of the binder [0112]. The negative active material layer used was preferably silicon based but could also be lithium based [0052].
Therefore, it would be obvious to the ordinarily skilled artist before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use silicon as the negative electrode active material because ‘group 14 elements can greatly improve the capacity of a non-aqueous electrolyte secondary battery’ [0052].
Conclusion
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/M.K.H./Examiner, Art Unit 1724
/MIRIAM STAGG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1724