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 1 and Species B in the reply filed on 4/22/26 is acknowledged.
Claims 5, 19, 20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to nonelected Groups and Species, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 4/22/26.
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 1-4, 7, 8, 10, 17, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US-6235419-B1 (M).
Regarding claim 1, M reference teaches a battery cell (12, “electric power generating elements”), comprising: a first wall (14), wherein a liquid injection hole (9) is disposed on the first wall, a first groove (recess formed by annular bank portion 16) in a circular ring shape (“annular”, C3/L40) is disposed around the liquid injection hole, and an opening of the first groove faces an exterior of the battery cell (the recess is formed on the outside of the battery casing 13); and a sealing member (“safety valve”, see Fig. 2), wherein the sealing member comprises a bottom wall (see annotated Fig. 5 below) and a side wall (see annotated Fig. 5 below), the bottom wall covers one end of the liquid injection hole away from an interior of the battery cell, the side wall is at least partially accommodated in the first groove (see Fig. 5), the side wall is in an annular structure (Fig. 5 is a cross-sectional view, see Fig. 6 which is a perspective view showing that the parts are cylindrical and therefore annular), and the side wall of the sealing member is frictionally welded (C4/L34-50) to a bottom wall of the first groove (15, “welding portion”) to seal the liquid injection hole.
PNG
media_image1.png
646
1059
media_image1.png
Greyscale
Regarding claim 2, M reference teaches the sealing member is provided with a clamping part (indicated with arrows in annotated Fig. 5 below), and the clamping part is configured for a clamping apparatus (22) to clamp and rotate the sealing member (C4/L34-35).
PNG
media_image2.png
266
535
media_image2.png
Greyscale
Regarding claim 3, M teaches the clamping part protrudes from a surface (indicated with arrows in annotated Fig. 5 below) of the bottom wall of the sealing member away from the interior of the battery cell.
PNG
media_image3.png
646
1059
media_image3.png
Greyscale
Regarding claim 4, M teaches the clamping part has two clamping surfaces parallel to each other (see annotated Fig. 6 below, the surfaces are concentric which means they are sufficiently parallel), the two clamping surfaces are perpendicular to the bottom wall of the sealing member, and the two clamping surfaces are configured to be clamped by the clamping apparatus (C4/L34-38).
PNG
media_image4.png
833
835
media_image4.png
Greyscale
Regarding claim 7, M teaches one end of the side wall of the sealing member facing an opening of the sealing member is provided with a protruding part (8), the protruding part protrudes from the side wall of the sealing member in a radial direction of the liquid injection hole, and the protruding part is accommodated in the first groove (see Fig. 5, the bank portion is flush with the welding part 8).
Regarding claim 8, M teaches the protruding part is welded to a side wall of the first groove (C4/L45-50).
Regarding claim 10, M teaches the welding part is flush with the bank portion (see Fig. 5). This means that M satisfies the claimed structure of the instant claim 10, since the bank portion must necessarily have a depth greater than or equal to the thickness of the welding part in the thickness direction.
Regarding claim 17, M teaches a battery (shown in Fig. 1) comprising the battery cell and a box (13, “battery case”) which holds the battery cell (C3/L3-L8).
Regarding claim 18, M does not explicitly teach a power consumption apparatus comprising the battery which supplies energy to the power consumption apparatus. This is however the express purpose of a battery and common in the art as explained in C1/L13-L26. Therefore, it is implied that M includes a power consumption apparatus.
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 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US-6235419-B1 (M), in view of US-20120107653-A1, Guen.
Regarding claim 6, M does not teach the sealing member is provided with a tool interface, and the tool interface is configured to accommodate a rotating head of a rotating apparatus to rotate the sealing member.
Guen teaches a stopper (1530) for an injection inlet (1510) with a groove (1534) on the top. The groove is used to couple with a screwdriver or another tool to screw in the stopper [0065]. While no welding is performed, this is still a viable structure for coupling a tool to provide rotation.
One of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing of the instant invention would have found it obvious to modify the safety valve of M to have a groove structure like that of Guen in order for it to pair with a tool head of the rotating apparatus because doing so would amount to no more than electing an alternate structure for rotationally coupling two parts with a reasonable chance of success.
Claims 11-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US-6235419-B1 (M), in view of US-20070224500-A1 (W).
Regarding claim 11, M does not teach a gasket disposed between the bottom wall and the first wall to seal the liquid injection hole.
W teaches a battery (entirety of Fig. 1) comprising an insulating sealing ring (270) which attached to a cathode casing side wall (242) via adhesive [0057]. W teaches the insulating sealing ring has ridges (275) which protrude and align with depressions in an adhesive layer (360b) that fixes the sealing ring to the anode casing side wall (263). W teaches the benefit of the protrusions is that they are compressed during manufacturing and improve the seal and prevent electrolyte movement along the path of the interfaces of the casings [0018].
While the battery of W is a zinc-air battery, the sealing member of W prevents electrolyte leakage in the field of batteries which is the same objective of the invention of M. Therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing of the instant invention would have found it obvious to provide the structure of the sealing assembly of W, including the adhesive layer and sealing ring with ridges, between the safety valve and the first wall of M in order to improve the seal and prevent electrolyte movement along the path of the interface. This would have been obvious to do to achieve the above benefit by applying a known method of improving the seal of a battery in the field of preventing electrolyte leaks with a reasonable chance of success.
Regarding claim 12, W, as mentioned before, teaches ridges which protrude into an adhesive layer that forms a surface of the equivalent to the first wall of M. These ridges are ring shaped because they are formed on the surface of a ring-shaped sealing member. The depressions that correspond to the ridges are likewise ring shaped because they are formed around the battery casing and conform to the ridges. This meets the structural requirements of the claim 12 of the instant.
Regarding claim 13, W teaches the ridges are evenly spaced (see Fig. 1B). This means that the distance between two adjacent ridges is equal to a value that is equal to the distance between any other two adjacent ridges. The recesses conform to the ridges so the distance between adjacent recesses must also be equal to that value. This teaches all of the structural requirements of claim 13 of the instant.
Regarding claim 14, W teaches the sealing ring is bonded to the cathode casing side wall with adhesive [0057]. In the implementation of the combination of M and W this adhesive would be provided between the bottom wall of the safety valve and the sealing ring, which teaches the structural requirements of claim 14 of the instant.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US-6235419-B1 (M), in view of US-20070224500-A1 (W), and in further view of US-4023866-A (G).
Regarding claim 15, W teaches the adhesive between the cathode casing side wall and the sealing ring is a polyamide resin adhesive [0057].
W does not teach a heat insulating layer disposed between the cathode casing side wall and the insulating sealing ring.
M teaches that a downside of such sealing rings is thermal deterioration (see Background/Summary, paragraph 9). M also teaches the welding process generates heat (C4/L40-41). There would therefore be a benefit to providing protection against this heat to prevent thermal deterioration of the sealing rings.
G teaches polyamide resin may serve as a thermally insulating material (C6/L33-40). Therefore, the election of a thermally insulating polyamide resin, such as the one used in G, as the polyamide resin adhesive of W would have been beneficial in the combination of the inventions of W and M in order to achieve the benefit of protecting the sealing ring from thermal decomposition. It would have been obvious to make this election to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing of the instant invention because doing so would amount to no more than the selection of a specific adhesive in the class of polyamide resins in order to provide thermal insulation to the sealing ring.
Claims 9 and 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US-6235419-B1 (M) in view of US-20130115492-A1 (A).
Regarding claim 9, M does not teach the bottom wall and a side wall of the first groove are connected by a rounded corner.
A teaches a liquid filling tap (30) for a battery with a fitting part (25) with an annular projection (33) that is welded to a peripheral edge (21P), forming a rounded corner between the two (see resulting welds in any of Figs. 5, 14), which are rounded). A teaches the liquid filling tap has the annular projection and an internal groove (34) to improve weld quality by allowing the molten metal to flow into the groove of the tap [0011]
Although A uses metal [0011] and laser welding, the same motivation to improve the weld quality of the frictionally welded polymer part of M would still apply because one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the process of welding of M still involves molten material flowing (M, C4/L47-50) and therefore might be improved in the same way.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing of the instant invention to modify the welding parts of M to have the annular projections and grooves of A in order to improve the weld quality of M because doing so would have a reasonable chance of success.
Regarding claim 16, M does not teach the specified dimensions of claim 16.
A teaches a liquid filling tap (30) which seals liquid filling hole (28) via welding [0049]. A teaches the filling tap has an outside diameter of 12 mm with a groove (34) that has a width and depth of 0.4 mm [0049]. The diameter of the liquid filling hole can at most be 12 mm, or 6 mm radius, because of this. This means that at most, the distance between the liquid filling hole and the edge of the groove facing the liquid filling hole is 5.6 mm, which is found by subtracting the width of the groove from the radius of the tap. At the least, the distance between the liquid filling hole and the edge of the groove is 0.4 mm, which is found from a case where the tap and the liquid filling hole are of equal size. This range is entirely encompassed by the claimed range of the instant claim 15 for the distance between the first groove and the liquid filling hole.
A teaches the benefit of these dimensions is that the groove forms a weld with enough depth of fusion with a smaller heating value which prevents a temperature rise of the liquid electrolyte [0060]. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to form the safety valve and groove of M with the dimensions of A in order to achieve the benefit of preventing temperature rise of the liquid electrolyte. This would be done by forming an interior wall for the groove of M to create a groove width of 0.4 mm. The ridge and the new interior wall would both have a height of 0.4 mm. The safety valve would have a diameter of 12 mm. One ordinary skill in the art would expect that this modification and the election of these dimensions for the safety valve of M would provide a similar benefit to that of A because A states that these dimensions are what gives rise to the benefits of A.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LOUISE JAMES IANNUCCI whose telephone number is (571)272-6917. The examiner can normally be reached 7:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M..
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Allison Bourke can be reached at (303) 297-4684. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/LOUISE JAMES IANNUCCI/Examiner, Art Unit 1721
/ALLISON BOURKE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1721
Prosecution Insights