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 statements (IDS) submitted on 02 February 2024, 20 September 2024, 11 November 2024, 07 July 2025, and 12 November 2025 were 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.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication 2019/0363401 (Lee et al.) in view of JP 2012-084424 (JP ‘424).
Regarding claims 1 and 2 Lee et al. discloses a secondary battery comprising: a case, a first electrode assembly accommodated inside the case with a second in parallel to the first both having multi-tabs with electrode terminals electrically connected to the multi-tabs (Abstract). The case is described as having a long first side portion with a second long side portion (Fig. 1A items 111 and 112 respectively). A first short side portion connects the ends of the first and second side long portion with a third short side portion connecting the second ends with a bottom portion to connect the long side portions (¶0034). Fig 1C teaches the electrode assemblies (120A and 120B) are placed in which the wide width surface which one surface of the assembly is coupled with the first long side portion of the case (¶0035). Electrode terminal pillars (Fig 1B 145 and 155) where the electrode terminals allowing for terminals to pass through a hole in the cap plate (Fig. 1 130). The first electrode multi-tab and second electrode multi-tab are welded to the first and second electrode terminal respectively (¶0085).
Lee is silent in regards to the limitation of a sealing plate opposed to the first surface where the wide width of the electrode body is pushed when the sealing plate is welded.
Regarding claims 1 and 3 JP’424 discloses a casing for a battery where the group of electrodes is sandwiched between the bottom of the outer case and the lid member such that then the lid member is fixed to the outer case by, for example, laser welding (¶0054). Fig. 7 discloses how the electrode body (1) is placed in the outer case (11) where an opening exists opposed to the wide width surface (11a) with pairs of outer edges (11b-e) where the lid member (12) is mounted to the case. The method of producing the case like this is disclosed to reduce assembly steps and the power storage element can be handled without being deformed (¶0030-0031).
Therefore, it is obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to combine the electrode assemblies with multi-tabs at one end facing the surface where the terminals are attached to the case through openings with the lid and case style of JP’424 battery to produce an electric storage device the same as the claimed invention.
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/D.E.H./ Examiner, Art Unit 1784
/HUMERA N. SHEIKH/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1784
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