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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group II(claims 6-10) in the reply filed on 04/17/2026 is acknowledged.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
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.
Claims 6-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Xu et. al. (CN104269521A, reference made to attached English translation).
Regarding claim 6, Xu discloses a method for preparing a secondary granulated silicon-carbon battery anode material(¶[0014]), comprising,
mixing a carbon substrate and nano-silicon to form a carbon material with its surface pores embedded with the nano-silicon(¶[0015]);
adding a binder(i.e. coating agent) to the carbon material with its surface pores embedded with the nano-silicon to obtain a mixture and granulating(i.e. mixing powder evenly with a coating agent) and carbonizing the mixture to form a plurality of modified layer coating carbon material with its surface pores embedded with the nano-silicon during heating, and to form a carbonized modified layer coating carbon material with its surface pores embedded with the nano-silicon after carbonizing(¶[0016]);
crushing(i.e. pulverizing) the carbonized modified layer coating carbon material with its surface pores embedded with the nano-silicon after carbonizing; and sieving the carbonized modified layer coating carbon material with its surface pores embedded with the nano-silicon after crushing(¶[0027]).
Regarding claim 7, Xu discloses the method according to claim 6 and further discloses wherein the mixing step of the carbon substrate and the nano-silicon further includes extruding and embedding the nano-silicon into the carbon substrate to form a carbon material with its surface pores embedded with the nano-silicon(¶[0019]).
Regarding claim 8, Xu discloses the method according to claim 6 and further discloses the weight percentage of the nano-silicon is 0.5%(example 1, ¶[0037]) of the carbon substrate.
Regarding claim 9, Xu discloses the method according to claim 6 and further discloses the weight percentage of the binder(i.e. coating agent asphalt) is 5%(example 1, ¶[0040]) of the carbon/silicon material.
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 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et. al. (CN104269521A, reference made to attached English translation) as applied to claim 6 above, and further in view of Kim et. al. (US20200354222A1).
Regarding claim 10, Xu discloses the method according to claim 6 and but does not disclose wherein the granulating and carbonizing are completed in a rotary furnace.
Kim, related to silicon/carbon composites, teaches a silicon-carbon nanocomposite with a carbonized coating(¶[0015]) and a rotary furnace is used during the process to purify and uniformly distribute the carbon source(¶[0146]-[0147]).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized using the rotary furnace carbonization step of Kim in place of the carbonization step of Xu would have provided a purified and evenly distributed granulated and carbonized material.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have used the rotary furnace carbonization step of Kim in place of the carbonization step of Xu to provide a purified and evenly distributed granulated and carbonized material.
Conclusion
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/K.J.A./Examiner, Art Unit 1726 /RYAN S CANNON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1726
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