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 statements (IDS) submitted on June 20, 2023 and July 31, 2023 have been considered by the examiner.
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.
Claims 1 and 3-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Pre-Grant Publication 2021/0310144, hereinafter Asada, and further in view of U.S Pre-Grant Publication 2010/0196755, hereinafter Park.
With respect to claims 1 and 3-5, Asada teaches a nickel-coated (reads on laminated) copper foil (instant claim 1) that is used for leads and negative electrode collectors (instant claim 3) of various batteries such as a lithium-ion secondary battery (instant claim 3) (Asada, [0022]).
However, Asada fails to provide XRD data and therefore explicitly teach an X-ray diffraction peak having a full width at half maximum of 0.3 degrees to 1.2 degrees (instant claim 1) as well as negative active material silicon (instant claim 5) being on the negative electrode current collector (instant claim 4).
Park teaches an electrode assembly for a secondary battery that contains a negative electrode (Park, Abstract). This negative electrode contains a negative electrode active material layer that contains silicon and is deposited on a negative electrode collector (Park, Abstract and [0007]). This negative electrode current collector made of stainless steel, nickel, copper, titanium, or an alloy thereof and has a tensile stress of 294.0 through 970.0 MPa (Park, [0047-0048]).
Therefore, it would obvious to the ordinarily skilled artist before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the high tensile strength current collector of Park in the nickel coated copper foil of Asada because it increases the capacity per volume of the negative electrode without degrading the battery performance (Park, [0090] to [0092]). According to the instant specification ([0018]), the full width at half maximum of the X-ray diffraction peak being between 0.3 and 1.2 degrees is due to the high tensile strength of 800 MPa to 1300 MPa. Therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate that because a current collector contains nickel and copper and has a high tensile strength within the range of the instant spec, the current collector would also have an overlapping range of the full width at half maximum of the X-ray diffraction peak.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Asada and Park as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of U.S. Pre-Grant Publication 2020/0388824, hereinafter Sachdev.
Asada and Park teach a negative current collector for a secondary lithium-ion battery that contains nickel and copper and an overlapping range of the full width at half maximum of the X-ray diffraction peak of 0.3 to 1.2 degrees as discussed above.
However, Asada and Park fail to teach the current collector containing carbon, phosphorus, or tungsten.
Sachdev teaches a lithium battery cell that contains a negative electrode with a current collector and a lithium intercalation host material applied thereto (Sachdev, [0013]). Similar to modified Asada, Sachdev teaches the anode current collector can include copper, nickel, stainless steel, or any other appropriate electrically conductive material known to skilled artisans and can be treated with highly electrically conductive materials including carbon (Sachdev, [0023]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled artist before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the carbon-based conductive materials of Sachdev in the negative current collector of Asada and Park because the addition of a highly electrically conductive material such as carbon is used ‘in order to decrease the electrical resistance between the current collect and the host material’ (Sachdev, [0023]).
Conclusion
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/M.K.H./Examiner, Art Unit 1724
/MIRIAM STAGG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1724
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