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 .
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 4, 7-8, 11, 14, 17 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by CN 207233865 (see English translation included with this action).
CN’865 discloses an electrode pole piece for a Li ion battery having a current collector layer(21) with an active material layer thereon (23). A polymer coating layer is formed between the two layers in a first zone (h1) and a second zone (h2) corresponding to the claimed “fourth portion” and “fifth portion”, respectively (see Fig 2 and description thereof on pp 4-5). The reference teaches that the impedance of the stack of polymer coating (221) and the active material in section h1 is higher than that of the active material (222) without the coating in section d1 (see Fig 2 and the paragraph bridging pages 4 and 5 in the translation). The reference discloses the use of the aforementioned electrode as a cathode (see Example 1)
With regard to claim 4, CN’865 discloses thickness of the regions 221 in Figure 2 of 3-12 micron (see next to last para on p. 4 and claim 7). The overlapping portion of the range, 3-8 micron, anticipates the claim.
With regard to claim 7, see Figure 2.
With regard to claim 8, CN’865 discloses the use of the aforementioned electrode as anode (see last para p3).
Claim 11, 14, 17, and 20 are met for the foregoing reasons
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) 2-6, 8-13, 15-16 and 18-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CN 207233865 (see English translation included with this action).
With regard to claims 2, 8-9, and 15, CN’865 teaches all of the features of the claims, as set forth in section 102, above, except for the ratio of the combined impedance of the fourth and first portion to that of the third portion.
CN’865 does teach that the combined impedance of layers 221+23 in region h1 (corresponding to the claimed 4th and 1st portions) is greater than that of layer 223 in region d1 (corresponding to the claimed 3rd portion). Thus, the ratio must be at least greater than 1. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to determine the optimal impedance value above 1 in view of the teaching that the impedance differential affects circulation stability of the electric core (see last para, p 4). Determination of an optimal value of a result effective variable would have been obvious.
With regard to claim 3 and 16, CN’865 does not explicitly disclose the claimed ratio of the width of the 4th portion to a width of the active material layer of 0.01-0.25. However, in the embodiment shown in Figure 2, the regions 221 all appear to be the same size (Note: it appears that the labels “h3” and “d2” were inadvertently switching in Figure 2). Likewise, the regions 222 each appear to be of equal size. The reference teaches that the width of h1+h2+h3 is 78-300% to that of regions d1+d2. If 300% is chosen from this disclosed range, it follows that h1=h2=h3=100 and d1=100=d2. A value for h1 would be 25% of the total width of the active material layer.
With regard to claims 4 and 11, CN’865 discloses thickness of the regions 221 in Figure 2 of 3-12 micron (see next to last para on p. 4 and claim 7). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to choose any value from within the disclosed range of 3-12 microns in view of apparent suitability of all values within the range.
With regard to claims 5-6, 12-13 and 18-19, CN’865 discloses the use of a binder and a conductive filler for the coating layer as claimed. The reference does not specifically disclose the particular conductive fillers for use therein. However, the use of conductive carbon as a conductive filler in battery applications was well known in the art. Choice of widely known materials for use as the conductive filler would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
With regard to claim 10, CN’865 does not disclose the ratio of a width of the negative electrode layer to a width of the negative electrode active layer in the range of 0.75-0.99. However, the reference does teach that the ratio of the sum of the widths of regions h1+h2+h2 to that of d1+d2 shown in Figure 2, is 78-300% (see p.4). For a ratio of 300%, the width of h1+h2+h3 (i.e, width of the negative electrode coating layer) could be said to be 300 and the width of the regions d1+d2 =100. Thus, the ratio of 300/(300+100) would be 0.75. Choice of any width value corresponding to the disclosed range of 78-300% would have been prima facie obvious.
Conclusion
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/Holly Rickman/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1785