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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDSs) submitted on June 8, 2023 and November 22, 2024 have been considered by the examiner.
Claims
The preliminary amendment filed June 8, 2023 has been entered.
Claims 1-15 are pending.
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.
Claims 1, 4-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JEONG et al. (US 2022/0271323 A1) in view of JUNG et al. (US 2022/0065534 A1) and CHOI et al. (US 2022/0294024 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 8-15, JEONG et al teaches a degassing device for preparing a secondary battery, which includes a piercing chamber configured to accommodate a first amount of degassing target pouches and having an internal space in which a pressure is selectively controlled to a vacuum pressure. The piercing chamber includes a piercing united configured to form inner gas discharge paths [0024]. The piercing chamber of JEONG et al. meets the current limitations for the vacuum chamber.
JEONG et al. additionally teaches a sealing chamber also having a controlled pressure environment and having a sealing unit([0024]). The sealing chamber meets the limitations for the second chamber.
JEONG et al. doesn’t appear to teach a chamber equivalent to the first chamber of the present application however JEONG et al. does teach two buffer chambers and an uploading chamber ([0024]). The buffer chambers are located before and after the sealing chamber and are used to maintain the vacuum pressure. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application, to incorporate a buffer chamber before the piercing chamber to ensure the secondary batteries are under an adequate pressure before being moved to the subsequent chamber.
JEONG et al. clearly teaches moving secondary batteries from one chamber to others however there does not appear to be any explicit teaching to incorporate a conveyor along a moving line. JUNG et al. teaches a furnace for producing a secondary battery cathode material wherein a divided chamber provided by a conveyor is taught. Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to incorporate a conveyor in the apparatus of JEONG et al. so as to effectively move the secondary batteries through the necessary chambers.
Further regarding claim 4, it would have been obvious to charge and discharge the degassed secondary batteries in order to effectively activate the batteries prior to use according to CHOI et al.
Regarding claims 5 and 6, JEONG et al. teach several loading gates and several first partition doors (110, 130, 150, 160)
Regarding claim 7, both the piercing chamber and the sealing chamber are under vacuum, it is the examiners position the pierces secondary batteries are sealed while in both chambers.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-3 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
There is no teaching or fair suggestion in the prior art of record of the specific structure of the first and second members are required by the present application.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
In US 2024/0186644, YU et al. teaches a method for the activation for a lithium secondary battery including a primary charging process, a first degassing process, an aging process and a second degassing process (abstract).
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BARBARA L GILLIAM
Supervisory Patent Examiner
Art Unit 1727
/BARBARA L GILLIAM/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1727