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 May 24, 2023 and March 26, 2024 have been considered by the examiner.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I in the reply filed on March 11, 2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 10-18 withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected process, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on March 11, 2026.
Claim Objections
Claim 2 is objected to because of the following informalities: M/L (claim 2, line 2-3) is not a unit of concentration. For purposes of compact prosecution, this appears to be a clear typo and so examiner will treat this as M or mol/L. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 19 is objected to because of the following informalities: Because claim 10 has been withdrawn, it should not be referenced (claim 19, line 3). For purposes of compact prosecution, examiner will treat this as if the method steps of claim 10 were copied into claim 19. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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, 5-9 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Pre-Grant Publication No. 2022/0025126, hereinafter Yoon, and further in view of Foreign Reference CN 103620850 A (IDS dated 05/24/2023 see attached machine translation for citations), hereinafter Kwon.
Regarding claims 1 and 19-20, Yoon teaches a battery module (instant claim 20) including the lithium secondary battery as a unit cell [0148]. The unit cell contains an electrode assembly that is prepared by coating an electrode and separator with a gel polymer electrolyte composition, curing it using heat or light, and injecting the assembly with existing liquid electrolyte solution again [0085] (instant claim 19) while recognizing that the limitations of claim 19 are product by process and do not necessarily impart structure different than the prior art. This would result in solid electrolyte (the polymer for the gel polymer electrolyte helps form a solid electrolyte interphase with high stability on the electrode surface [0022]) being present in the porous positive electrode [0135] and the porous separator [0146]. After injection, the liquid electrolyte solution would be present between the separator and the sheet negative electrode [0135] as well as throughout the solid electrolyte matrix (instant claim 1).
However, Yoon fails to teach a mass ratio of solid to liquid electrolyte being 1:1 to 8:1.
Kwon teaches an electrode assembly having a structure in which a cathode, an anode, and a separation layer disposed between the cathode and the anode. The separation layer (130) has a multilayer structure including a three-phase electrolyte including a liquid phase (132) component, a solid component (131), and a polymer matrix (133 and 134) (Abstract). Based on the weight of the polymer matrix of the three-phase electrolyte, a quantity of solid phase component may be 20 to 90 wt% [0048]. When the quantity of the solid phase component is less than 20 wt%, the support force of the isolation layer is weak, thereby will be short-circuited. On the other hand, when quantity of the solid phase component exceeds 90 wt%, the quantity of the liquid phase component is lowered relatively, thereby wetting performance deteriorated [0048]. This demonstrates an overlap in ranges taught. In the case where the claimed ranges “overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art” a Prima facie case of obviousness exists (MPEP 2144.05). Additionally, the weight ratio of solid electrolyte to liquid electrolyte is considered an art recognized result effective variable.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled artist before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have optimized the weight ratio of solid electrolyte to liquid electrolyte in Yoon in order to maintain the wetting performance while also maintaining the support force of the isolation layer, as taught by Kwon. Similarly, Yoon discusses the importance of developing a method for preparing a gel polymer electrolyte in order to improve safety against external impact while also securing the mechanical strength and ion transport capability (Yoon, [0012]). One of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate that weight and mass are directly proportional to one another and would have the same effect. In optimizing these weight ratios, one would arrive at the claimed mass ratios, barring evidence to criticality or unexpected results.
Regarding claim 5, Yoon and Kwon teach the electrode assembly according to claim 1. Additionally, Yoon teaches that the polymer polymerizes through conventional in-situ polymerization or coating polymerization method [0081].
Regarding claim 6, Yoon and Kwon teach the electrode assembly according to claim 5. Additionally, Yoon teaches that the gel polymer electrolyte consists of a polymer (instant’s first monomer) dissolved in a mixture of a non-aqueous solvent, a lithium salt (instants first electrolyte solution), a polymerization initiator, and an additive (instants second monomer) [0087].
Regarding claim 7, Yoon and Kwon teach the electrode assembly according to claim 6. Additionally, Yoon teaches that the first monomer is methacrylic acid [0056], the second monomer is vinyl ethylene carbonate [0115], the first electrolyte solution contains lithium tetrafluoroborate as its electrolytic salt [0106], and the initiator is an azo initiator [0102].
Regarding claim 8, Yoon and Kwon teach the electrode assembly according to claim 7. Additionally, Yoon teaches that the azo initiator is azobisisobutyronitrile [0102].
Regarding claim 9, Yoon and Kwon teach the electrode assembly according to claim 1. Additionally, Yoon teaches that the positive electrode contains lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide as the active material [0123-0124] and the negative electrode contains a lithium metal alloy as the active material [0136].
Claims 2-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoon and Kwon, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of U.S. Pre-Grant Publication No. 2003/0064282, hereinafter Nakagawa.
Regarding claims 2-4, Yoon and Kwon teach, as mentioned above, an electrode assembly that contains a positive electrode, separator, and negative electrode with a solid electrolyte within the positive electrode and separator and a liquid electrolyte present between the negative electrode and separator (Yoon, [0085]). The solid and liquid electrolyte have a mass ratio of 1:1 to 8:1 (Kwon, [0035]). The existing liquid electrolyte (Yoon, [0085]) contains the solvent ethylene carbonate (Yoon, [0092]) (instant claim 3) and the electrolytic salt lithium tetrafluoroborate (Yoon, [0106]) (instant claim 4).
However, Yoon and Kwon fail to teach the electrolytic salt having a concentration of 2-6 mol/L in the liquid electrolyte.
Nakagawa teaches a separator for a battery that comprises of a crosslinked material layer formed on a porous material. This separator absorbs a liquid electrolyte [0012] that is made up of ethylene carbonate [0097] as a solvent and lithium tetrafluoroborate and an electrolytic salt [0096]. The concentration of electrolyte in the liquid electrolyte is 1mol/L to 5mol/L [0098]. This represents overlapping ranges.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled artist before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have used the electrolytic salt concentration of Nakagawa in the electrode assembly of Yoon and Kwon because it improves the high low temperature properties of the battery and improves high liquid electrolyte leakage preventive properties [0098].
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Mia K Holbrook whose telephone number is (571)272-9253. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 7:30-5.
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/M.K.H./Examiner, Art Unit 1724
/MIRIAM STAGG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1724
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