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 .
Applicants’ Preliminary Amendment, filed on June 16, 2023, has been made of record and entered. In this amendment, claims 3-13 have been amended to eliminate multiple claim dependency.
No claims have been canceled or added; claims 1-13 are presently pending in this application.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Applicants’ Priority Document was filed on June 16, 2023.
Claim Objections
Claim 4 is objected to because of the following informalities:
In line 2 of claim 4, “wherein nonaqueous electrolyte” should be amended to recite “wherein the nonaqueous electrolyte”, to ensure claim continuity.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mio et al. (U. S. Patent Publication No. 2013/0040209, Applicants’ submitted art) in view of Yamada et al. (U. S. Patent Publication No. 2015/0270522, Applicants’ submitted art).
Regarding claims 1, 3, and 11, Mio et al. teach a lithium secondary battery (“nonaqueous electrolyte energy storage device”; “lithium ion secondary battery”) comprising a non-aqueous electrolyte solution using a cyclic sulfone compound, represented by:
PNG
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159
250
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Greyscale
,
where R1, R2, R3, and R4 can each independently represent hydrogen. See paragraph [0079] of Mio et al. Exemplary cyclic sulfone compounds include 2,4-dimethyl-1,3-dithietane-1,1,3,3-tetraoxide, 2,4-diethyl-1,3-dithietane-1,1,3,3-tetraoxide, 2,4-dipropyl-1,3-dithietane-1,1,3,3-tetraoxide, and 2,4-dibutyl-1,3-dithietane-1,1,3,3-tetraoxide (“2,4-dialkyl-1,3-dithietane-1,1,3,3-tetraoxide”). See Synthesis Examples 1, 3, 17, and 18 of Mio et al.
Further regarding claim 1, and also regarding claims 4, 7, and 8, Mio et al. teach that the aforementioned nonaqueous electrolyte solution additionally comprises ethylene carbonate as a non-aqueous solvent and LiPF6 as an electrolyte, along with the aforementioned cyclic sulfone compound, wherein the cyclic sulfone compound is present in the non-aqueous electrolyte solution in an amount of 0.5% by mass. See paragraphs [0354]-[0357] of Mio et al., as well as Example 3 in Table 1, Example 18 in Table 2, and Examples 33-35 in Table 3.
Further regarding claim 1, and also regarding claims 9 and 10, Mio et al. teach a lithium secondary battery comprising a negative electrode, a positive electrode, the aforementioned non-aqueous solution, and a separator provided between the negative electrode and the positive electrode. The negative electrode comprises a negative electrode active material, examples of which include lithium metal, a graphite material (natural or artificial graphite); the positive electrode comprises a positive electrode active material, examples of which include LiCoO2, LiMnO2, LiMn2O4, LiNiO2, LiNixCo(1-x)O2 (0 < x < 1), and LiFePO4 (“lithium-transition metal composite oxides…”; “spinel-type crystal structure”; “polyanion compounds”), and examples of the separator include a porous film and a polymer electrolyte, wherein the porous film may be a porous polymer film, e.g., including polyolefins and polyesters, and also a multilayer film of a porous polyethylene film and a porous polypropylene film (“separator including a porous substrate layer”). See paragraphs [0224]-[0240] of Mio et al.
Regarding claims 12 and 13, Mio et al. teach that the aforementioned lithium secondary battery may be employed in a variety of applications, including notebook and mobile computers, mobile telephones (“electronic devices”), and automobiles. See paragraph [0248] of Mio et al.
Mio et al. do not teach or suggest a separator including a porous substrate layer, said substrate layer having a porosity of 44% or more, as recited in claim 1, or of 48% or more, or of 60% or less, as respectively recited in claims 5 and 6. Mio et al. also do not teach or suggest the limitations of claim 2 regarding the presence of an inorganic layer layered on the substrate layer.
Regarding claims 1, 2, 5, and 6, Yamada et al. teach a separator for an electrochemical element, e.g., a lithium ion secondary battery (paragraph [0120]), comprising a substrate and inorganic particles on the outer and inner surfaces thereof (paragraphs [0060], [0172]; “inorganic layer layered on the substrate layer”). Said substrate has a porosity of 55% or more, and preferably 58% or more, from the viewpoint of maintenance of ion permeability and of the discharge capacity at a high rate (paragraph [0062]), and the separator has a porosity of 45 to 70% (paragraph [0118]).
The separator includes a nonwoven fabric membrane comprising sheath-core composite fibers in which a sheath portion comprises a polyolefin-based resin and a core portion comprises a polyester-based resin. See paragraph [0137] of Yamada et al.
Note that Mio et al., in paragraph [0239] therein, teaches the feasibility in the separator comprising a porous polymer film, where polyolefins and polyesters are disclosed as exemplary polymers for said porous polymer film.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of Applicants’ invention to modify the invention of Mio et al. by incorporating therein the separator disclosed by Yamada et al., in an endeavor to obtain a lithium ion secondary battery (“nonaqueous electrolyte energy storage device”) exhibiting a high discharge capacity rate and suppressed short-circuiting, as provided by the separator. See paragraph [0022] of Yamada et al.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See, for example, Atsushi et al. (JP 2012 094554), and Noguchi et al. (U. S. Patent Publication No. 2019/0089003).
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/Patricia L. Hailey/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1732 December 30, 2025