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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12/22/2023 and 07/25/2024 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claim(s) 1-4, 9-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tashiro (US 2017/0005373) in view of Ghantous et al. US 2016/0116548 (hereinafter Ghantous).
Regarding claim 1, Tashiro discloses a battery module (¶¶ 0006-0007; a battery
system), comprising
a battery device (fig. 1 and ¶ 0037-0041) that comprises a secondary battery (¶ 0038; the secondary battery) in which an electrode body (fig. 2, element 120) and an electrolytic solution (¶ 0038; an electrolytic solution 130) are accommodated inside a battery case (¶ 0038; The battery case 110 accommodates the power generating element 120, an electrolytic solution 130 is contained inside the battery case 110); and
a control device (fig. 1, element 40) that is configured to control a charge and discharge of the battery device (¶¶ 0006-0007, 0123; When the amount of increase in resistance Dh is calculated, it is possible to control charging or discharging of the secondary battery 10 on the basis of the amount of increase in resistance Dh),
wherein the control device comprises:
an increase amount measurer that is configured to measure an increase amount LΔ of an excess electrolytic solution of the secondary battery for a charge (¶¶ 0005-0009, 0053, 0055-0056, 0058; The controller is configured to calculate a liquid
level height of the electrolytic solution. The liquid level height indicates a height of a liquid level of the electrolytic solution outside the power generating element with a height from a reference plane to a reference point of the liquid level; because the liquid level height depends on the current value at the time when the secondary battery is charged or discharged, it is possible to calculate the liquid
level height when the current value is detected); and
a current value corrector that is configured to perform a current correcting control for correcting a current value of a charge current with respect to the battery device (¶¶ 0123, 0125; When the amount of increase in resistance Dh is calculated, it is possible to control charging or discharging of the secondary battery 10 on the basis of the amount of increase in resistance Dh; When the amount of increase in resistance Dh is larger than or equal to the threshold Dh_th, the controller 40 decreases an allowable charge power Win or an allowable discharge power Wout in step S302) based on the increase amount LΔ of the excess electrolytic solution.
However, Tashiro fails to disclose the current value corrector that is configured to perform a current correcting control for correcting a current value of a charge current with respect to the battery device based on the increase amount of the excess electrolytic solution.
Ghantous further discloses an apparatus is provided for provided using information about battery swelling to adapt a charging process to, for example, reduce swelling or future increases in swelling in ¶ 0004. The apparatus is able to adjust the charging sequence involves: determining that the swelling of the battery exceeds a predetermined range or value and performing one or more of the following operations: reducing an amplitude of a charge current, terminating the charging sequence, increasing a number of charge steps over a charge period, adjusting a step width of one or more charge steps, introducing one or more negative pulses, or adjusting an amplitude or pulse width of one or more negative pulses in ¶ 0009.
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Tashiro to incorporate with the teaching of Ghantous by adjusting the amplitude of a charge current when the swelling of the battery exceeds a predetermined range or value, because it would be advantageous to extend the cycle life the battery/cell when implementing an adaptive charging technique.
Although Tashiro in view of Ghantous disclose the system is able to correct the amplitude of a charge current when the swelling of the battery exceeds a predetermined range or value, the excess electrolytic solution increase and the swelling of the battery are correlated expansion indicators of high-rate or cycling-induced electrode expansion/deterioration. An expansion/swelling indicator that exceeds a predetermined threshold is functionally analogous to an increase amount of excess electrolytic solution that exceeds a threshold, because both signal electrode expansion and are used to justify reducing charge current to limit further degradation. Therefore, a person of ordinary skill would recognize the increase amount LΔ of the excess electrolytic solution and thickness change as alternative quantifications of the same electrode-expansion effect.
Regarding claim 2, Tashiro in view of Ghantous discloses wherein the control device further comprises a start deciding circuit that is configured to instruct the current value corrector to start the current correcting control (Ghantous, ¶¶ 0009, 0095-0096) when the increase amount LΔ of the excess electrolytic solution exceeds a predetermined threshold LT (Tashiro, ¶¶ 0005-0009, 0053, 0055-0056, 0058; The controller is configured to calculate a liquid level height of the electrolytic solution. The liquid level height indicates a height of a liquid level of the electrolytic solution outside the power generating element with a height from a reference plane to a reference point of the liquid level).
Regarding claim 3, Tashiro discloses wherein the increase amount measurer (¶¶ 0007, 0011, 0055-0056, 0058) comprises:
a liquid amount obtainer that is configured to obtain a first liquid amount L1 corresponding to a liquid amount of the excess electrolytic solution with a predetermined first SOC (Claim 2, ¶¶ 0011, 0055), a second liquid amount L2 corresponding to a liquid amount of the excess electrolytic solution with a second SOC being a higher SOC than the first SOC (¶¶ 0011, 0056 and claim 4), and
a total liquid amount LT corresponding to a total amount of the electrolytic solution existing inside the battery case (¶ 0072; when the correlation between an amount (contained amount) of the electrolytic solution 130 that is contained in the
battery case 110 and a liquid level height href is obtained in advance, it is possible to identify the liquid level height href from the contained amount of the electrolytic solution 130); and
a calculator that is configured to calculate the increase amount LΔ of the excess electrolytic solution based on a following Formula (1) [¶¶ 0072, 0085-0086].
LΔ = (L2 -L1)/LT (1)
Regarding claim 4, Tashiro discloses wherein the first SOC (¶ 0067, claims 2, 5), but does not disclose the first SOC is set within a range from 10% to 20%. However, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to set the SOC within a range from 10% to 20%, since it has been held that where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, discovering the “optimum range” involves only routine skill in the art in order to optimize the charging or discharging process. In re Aller, 105 USPQ 233. See MPEP 2144.05. Regarding claim 9, Tashiro discloses wherein the battery device comprises a battery pack provided with plural said secondary batteries (¶ 0034; a plurality of the secondary batteries).
Regarding claim 10, Tashiro discloses wherein the control device (¶¶ 0006-0007) comprises:
a selecting circuit that is configured to arbitrarily select a reference battery from a plurality of the secondary batteries (¶¶ 0056, 0059, 0061); and
a measurement instruction circuit that is configured to instruct the increase amount measurer so as to measure the increase amount LΔ of the excess electrolytic solution of the reference battery (¶¶ 0007, 0055-0058, 0085-0086).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-8 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:
Regarding claim 5, the prior art fails to teach or suggest further inclusion of the battery module further comprising: an X-ray image capturing apparatus that is configured to capture an X-ray transmission image of the secondary battery, wherein the liquid amount obtainer comprises: an image capture instruction circuit that is configured to instruct the X-ray image capturing apparatus so as to capture the X-ray transmission image; and an image analyzer that is configured to measure a liquid amount of the excess electrolytic solution based on an image analysis for the X-ray transmission image.
Claims 6-8 are objected for the reasons as claim 5 from which they depend.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZIXUAN ZHOU whose telephone number is (571)272-6739. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.
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/ZIXUAN ZHOU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2859 08/07/2026
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