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 .
DETAILED ACTION
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.
Specification
The specification and drawings have been reviewed and no clear informalities or objections have been noted.
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(s) 1-4, 6-9, 11, 12 and 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kondo (JP 2009054484 A with references made to the machine translation) in view of Ichikawa (JP 2019164961 A with references made to the machine translation).
Regarding claims 1 and 20, Kondo discloses a battery comprising:
a first electrode (negative electrode 4);
a second electrode (positive electrode 3); and
a solid electrolyte layer (51) disposed between the first electrode and the second electrode (as depicted in Fig. 1),
wherein the solid electrolyte layer contains a first solid electrolyte (as described in lines 435-438 which discloses a solid electrolyte in layer 51), the first electrode includes:
a substrate including a porous body (see lines 191-193 that teaches that the substrate/current collector is a net member with a space portion); and
an active material layer disposed on a surface of the substrate (see lines 1032-1034 which discloses coating an active material layer on the collector/substrate surface).
Kondo teaches an embodiment in which the active material layer comprises bismuth (lines 862-865) and teaches that the substrate is a porous material that comprises nickel (see lines 811-817), but Kondo is silent regarding the inclusion of an alloy that contains Bi and Ni.
Ichikawa also discloses a battery (see abstract).
Ichikawa, like Kondo, teaches a negative electrode active material that comprises bismuth (see abstract). Ichikawa goes on to teach that the bismuth in the negative electrode active material is alloyed with a transition metal (see abstract) and that this transition metal is preferably nickel (lines 74-76). Ichikawa teaches that this alloyed negative active material is beneficial in that it improves the capacity retention ratio while suppressing bismuth flammability to improve safety (lines 138-143).
As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to add the alloyed BiNi of Ichikawa to the negative active material of Kondo in order to improve the capacity retention ratio while suppressing bismuth flammability to improve safety.
Regarding claim 2, Kondo, as modified above, further discloses the active material layer contains BiNi (see lines 111-116 which discloses a range of nickel/bismuth ratios which includes 1:1). While modified Kondo does not explicitly teach the claimed ratio, it does teach a range that overlaps the claimed range. As such, arriving at the claimed range would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists (see MPEP §2144.05(I)).
Regarding claims 3 and 4, Kondo, as modified by Ichikawa, further discloses the active material layer contains the BiNi as a main component of an active material (see lines 302-305 of Ichikawa that teaches that the alloy makes up greater than 95% of the active material).
Regarding claim 6, Kondo further discloses the active material layer contains at least one selected from the group consisting of LiBi and Li3Bi (the bismuth in the anode will form composites with lithium including the claimed compounds as a result of lithium intercalation upon charging of the battery).
Regarding claim 7, Kondo further discloses the active material layer is free of an electrolyte (see lines 29-32 which discloses that the negative active material layer is composed of a metal material (Bi) and teaches that the current collector has solid electrolyte within the pores, but does not teach including solid electrolyte in the active material layer).
Regarding claim 8, Kondo discloses that the current collector/substrate needs to be electrically conductive, but does not explicitly state what material the of the collector/substrate is made from.
Ichikawa, like Kondo, teaches a current collector to plate the negative active material (in this case, its BiNi) and teaches that the current collector can be chosen from a number of conductive metals including nickel (see lines 321-326).
As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to utilize a nickel current collector/substate in Kondo, as taught by Ichikawa in order to provide an electrically conductive metal to properly transfer current to/from the battery. Furthermore, such a modification is nothing more than choosing from a finite number of identified, predictable solutions with a reasonable expectation of success.
Regarding claim 9, Kondo further discloses the active material layer is a heat-treated plating layer (lines 862-865).
Regarding claim 11, Kondo further discloses the first solid electrolyte contains a first sulfide solid electrolyte (lines 144-147).
Regarding claim 12 and 19, Kondo further discloses the first electrode further includes a second solid electrolyte in contact with the active material layer (see lines 183-185 which discloses a solid electrolyte in the space/pores part of the current collector that integrates with the electrode).
Regarding claims 18, Kondo further discloses the second solid electrolyte contains a second sulfide solid electrolyte (lines 200-202).
Claim(s) 10, 13, 14 and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kondo (JP 2009054484 A with references made to the machine translation) in view of Ichikawa (JP 2019164961 A with references made to the machine translation) and further in view of Sakaida (WO 2020/070957 A1 with references made to the English language equivalent US 2021/0126284).
Regarding claims 10 and 13, Kondo teaches the presence of a sulfide solid electrolyte between the electrodes (as discussed above), but is silent regarding the first electrode comprising a second solid electrolyte that contains a halide and is free of sulfur.
Sakaida also discloses a solid electrolyte battery (see abstract).
Sakaida teaches, like Kondo, a solid electrolyte layer (202) that can contain a sulfide solid electrolyte (paragraph 68) and goes on to teach that the electrodes (201, 203) also contain a solid electrolyte, like Kondo. Sakaida teaches that this solid electrolyte in the electrode is preferable a halide solid electrolyte and gives several examples of the halide electrolytes that do not contain sulfur (see paragraphs 13-21). Sakaida teaches this halide solid electrolyte in the electrodes in order to produce a highly conductive material for the electrode while improving the charge-discharge characteristics of the battery and improve the safety (paragraph 31).
As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to add the halide solid electrolyte of Sakaida to the electrodes of modified Kondo in order to improve the charge-discharge characteristics of the battery and improve the safety.
Regarding claims 14 and 16, Kondo, as modified by Sakaida, does not teach the exact claimed composition range, but does teach a range that significantly overlaps the claimed range (as defined in paragraph 29 of Sakaida). As such, arriving at the claimed range would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists (see MPEP §2144.05(I)).
Claim(s) 15 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kondo (JP 2009054484 A with references made to the machine translation) in view of Ichikawa (JP 2019164961 A with references made to the machine translation) and further in view of Sakaida (WO 2020/070957 A1 with references made to the English language equivalent US 2021/0126284) and further in view of Sakai (WO 2019/135315 A1 with references made to the English language equivalent US 2020/0328453).
Regarding claims 15 and 17, Kondo, as modified above, teaches a halide solid electrolyte but does not teach either of the compositions of claim 17 or the inclusion of Y in the composition as claimed in claim 15.
Sakai also discloses a battery comprising a halide containing solid electrolyte (see abstract).
Sakai teaches solid electrolyte composition of Li3YBr3Cl3 (paragraph 62) and teaches that this halide composition is beneficial in that is provides stability over a wide temperature range as well as high conductivity (paragraph 23).
As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to utilize the halide composition of Sakai in the halide solid electrolyte of modified Kondo in order to provide stability over a wide temperature range as well as high conductivity
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 5 is 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: The closest prior art, Ichikawa, teaches the presence of NiBi in a battery electrode, but expressly teaches the space group P63/mmc. The prior art neither teaches nor suggests a motivation to modify the prior art to utilize the claimed C2/m space group in a battery configuration, as claimed.
Relevant Prior Art
Clarke, “Controlling Dimensionality in the Ni-Bi System with Pressure", Chem. Mater. 2019, 31, 955-959 – This reference teaches the production of a monoclinic NiBi system with C2/m space group, similar to that claimed, but does not provide any application or function of this alloy.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW J MERKLING whose telephone number is (571)272-9813. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 8am-6pm.
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/MATTHEW J MERKLING/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1725
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