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 .
Claim Interpretation
Regarding claims 1 and 13, applicant claims a total number of fluorine atoms in R1 and R2 is 2 or 3. This can be interpreted as either, R1 has 2 or 3 fluorenes and R2 has 2 or 3 fluorenes, or, the total amount of fluorenes in the composition is 2 or 3. For the purposes of examination, “a total number of fluorine atoms in R1 and R2 is 2 or 3” is being interpreted as the total amount of fluorenes in the composition is 2 or 3.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-3, 6, 8-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoshida et al. (US 20130323606 A1) in view of Dubois et al. (US 10205192 B2).
Regarding claims 1 and 2, Yoshida teaches a battery with a cathode having an active material layer comprising lithium metal oxide particles in the form of secondary particles comprising a plurality of aggregated primary particles (Yoshida 0027), an anode facing the cathode, and an electrolyte solution (Yoshida 0023, fig. 6). Yoshida further teaches that the primary particles of the cathode have a major axis from a center of a particle to a surface as well as a workable range of an aspect ratio of between 2.0 and 10.0 (Yoshida 0023) which fully encompasses the claimed range of 2-5 as well as 2.5 to 3.7 which is therefore rendered obvious in view of overlapping ranges and routine experimentation in order to relax the stress induced by expansion (Yoshida 0025) and establishing the aspect ratio as a result effective variable, See MPEP 2144.05. Yoshida teaches the electrolyte has lithium salt and an organic solvent which may include mixtures of known organic solvents as well as including carbonates (Yoshida 0046) but is silent to specifically chemical formula 1 with the proper R1 and R2 groups.
Dubois teaches electrolyte compositions that have improved performance at high temperatures for lithium ion batteries (Dubois, column 1 line 47) including lithium manganese cobalt oxide based electrodes similar to those disclosed in Yoshida. One such composition comprises the solvent 2,2-difluoroethyl acetate, CAS No. 1550-44-3, which meets all the limitations of the organic solvent with two alkyl groups, one is unsubstituted and the other is substituted with 2 fluorenes (Dubois, column 4 line 27).
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It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to take the battery of Yoshida as described above and replace the generic organic solvent with a solvent of Dubois comprising 2,2-difluoroethyl acetate in order to have better performance at high temperatures as described in Dubois as doing so presents a simple substitution of one known prior art solvent mixture for another yielding predictable results. See MPEP 2143.I.B.
Regarding claim 3, Yoshida in view of Dubois teaches claim 1 as described above and Yoshida further teaches that the positive electrode has a content of lithium metal oxide particles at 90% which is a value within the claimed range and therefore renders it obvious (Yoshida 0068).
Regarding claim 6, Yoshida in view of Dubois teaches claim 1 as described above and Yoshida further teaches that the lithium metal oxide particle is formed by aggregating the rod-shaped primary particles (Yoshida abstract). While a ratio of areas is not explicitly stated in text, Yoshida fig. 1 shows that the area of the secondary particle is made up of primary particles and that the packing density of the primary particles can go up to 4 g/cm3 which would result in an area ratio greater than 80% which therefore renders it obvious in view of overlapping ranges and routine experimentation in order to increase the amount of electrolyte while balancing capacity and deterioration rate which establishes the area ratio as a result effective variable, See MPEP 2144.05 (Yoshida 0044).
Regarding claims 8-10, Yoshida in view of Dubois teaches claim 1 as described above and 2,2-difluoroethyl acetate meets the criteria of the claims, rendering them obvious.
Regarding claim 11, Yoshida in view of Dubois teaches claim 1 as described above and Dubois further teaches that the 2,2-difluoroethyl acetate is a fluorinated acyclic carboxylic acid ester and can be mixed with a non-fluorinated carbonate (Dubois, column 3 lines 7-11 and column 4 lines 25-28).
Regarding claim 12, Yoshida in view of Dubois teaches claim 1 as described above and Dubois further teaches that the fluorinated solvent comprises between 5% and 95% of the total weight of the electrolyte which, while not referring to volume directly, Given the breadth of the range of the prior art weight percent it would overlap with the volume range claimed when converted from mass to volume percent and therefore renders it obvious in view of overlapping ranges and routine experimentation in order to change conductivity which establishes the volume % as a result effective variable, See MPEP 2144.05 (Dubois, column 5 line 20).
Claim(s) 4-5 and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoshida et al. (US 20120323606 A1) in view of Dubois et al. (US 10205192 B2) and further in view of Wood, III et al. (US 20190198856 A1, hereinafter referred to as Wood).
Regarding claims 4-5, Yoshida in view of Dubois teaches claim 1 as described above and Yoshida teaches lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) as a cathode active material but is silent to the nickel content being above 0.8 in respect to all elements but oxygen and lithium. Wood teaches a battery with an NMC cathode where the cathode is NMC 811, LiNi0.8Mn0.1Co0.1O2, which delivers a higher capacity and uses cheaper materials (Wood 0140 0141).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to take the battery of Yoshida in view of Dubois as described above and replace the cathode active material with NMC 811 as described in Wood as doing so reduces the amount of Co needed and delivers a high capacity.
Regarding claim 13, Yoshida teaches a battery with a plurality of electrode stacks inside a case (Yoshida fig. 6) with each stack comprising a cathode having an active material layer comprising lithium metal oxide particles in the form of secondary particles comprising a plurality of aggregated primary particles (Yoshida 0027), an anode facing the cathode, a separator separating the cathode and anode, and an electrolyte solution (Yoshida 0023, fig. 6). Yoshida further teaches that the primary particles of the cathode have a major axis from a center of a particle to a surface as well as an aspect ratio of between 2.0 and 10.0 (Yoshida 0023) which fully encompasses the claimed range of 1.5 to 5.0 which is therefore rendered obvious in view of overlapping ranges and routine experimentation in order to relax the stress induced by expansion (Yoshida 0025). Yoshida teaches the electrolyte has lithium salt and an organic solvent but is silent to specifically chemical formula 1 with the proper R1 and R2 groups.
Dubois teaches electrolyte compositions that have improved performance At high temperatures for lithium ion batteries (Dubois, column 1 line 47). One such composition comprises the solvent 2,2-difluoroethyl acetate, CAS No. 1550-44-3, which meets all the limitations of the organic solvent with two alkyl groups, one is unsubstituted and the other is substituted with 2 fluorenes (Dubois, column 4 line 27).
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Both Yoshida and Dubois are silent to the nickel content being above 0.8 in respect to all elements but oxygen and lithium. Wood teaches a battery with an NMC cathode where the cathode is NMC 811, LiNi0.8Mn0.1Co0.1O2, which delivers a higher capacity and uses cheaper materials (Wood 0140 0141).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to take the battery of Yoshida as described above and replace the generic organic solvent with 2,2-difluoroethyl acetate in order to have better performance at high temperatures as described in Dubois. Further, It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to take the battery of modified Yoshida and replace the cathode active material with NMC 811 as described in Wood as doing so reduces the amount of Co needed and delivers a high capacity.
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoshida et al. (US 20120323606 A1) in view of Dubois et al. (US 10205192 B2), Wood, III et al. (US 20190198856 A1, hereinafter referred to as Wood), and further in view of Kato et al. (US 20220271272 A1).
Regarding claim 7, Yoshida in view of Dubois teaches claim 1 as described above but is silent to the exact crystal structure of the primary particles. Wood teaches a battery with an NMC cathode where the cathode active material has a range of values and can be LiNi0.9Mn0.05Co0.05O2, which uses cheaper materials due to replacing Co with cheaper Ni (Wood 0033 0140). Kato teaches a method of making a NMC base primary particle. The method includes sufficiently mixing a desired composite hydroxide containing nickel, cobalt, and manganese with a lithium compound, such as lithium hydroxide, so that the ratio of lithium to other metals is between 0.95 and 1.5, such as a 1:1.03 ratio (Kato 0269-0271). The mixture is then fired at a temperature of between 650oC and 920oC, such as 670oC, and the temperature is raised at a rate of between 2oC per minute and 10oC per minute (Kato 0281 0282). The temperature is further maintained at the firing temperature for between 2 and 24 hours, such as 10 hours, and the atmosphere in the furnace has an oxygen concentration maintained between 18% and 100% by volume via a flow of oxygen, such as 10 mL/min (Kato 0284 0287). After firing, the fired product was cooled at a slow rate and then crushed to obtain the primary particles with a desired crystal structure and size (Kato 0285 0289). As Kato shows the same method of making the particle as preparation example 1 does in the instant application, the same crystal structure would be expected to be formed and result in:
(D(110))/(D(006)) = 0.6593
(D(110))/(D(009)) = 0.6390
As both of these values are within the claimed range, the claim is therefore rendered obvious.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to take modified Yoshida and use LiNi0.9Mn0.05Co0.05O2 as the composition of the primary particles, as taught in Wood, due to being cheaper than other options. One would further look at relevant art in order to make this particle and come across Kato which teaches how to form the particles with a desired crystal structure and particle size that result in desired properties, such as conductivity. NOTE: Where … the claimed and prior art products are identical or substantially identical, or are produced by identical or substantially identical processes, the PTO can require an applicant to prove that the prior art products do not necessarily or inherently possess the characteristics of his claimed product. Whether the rejection is based on “inherency” under 35 USC § 102, on prima facie obviousness” under 35 USC § 103, jointly or alternatively, the burden of proof is the same, and its fairness is evidenced by the PTO' s inability to manufacture products or to obtain and compare prior art products.” In re Best, 562 F2d 1252, 1255, 195 USPQ 430, 433-4 (CCPA 1977).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SEAN ROBERT BROWN whose telephone number is (571)272-0640. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 9-5 ET.
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/SEAN R. BROWN/ Examiner, Art Unit 1743
/GALEN H HAUTH/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1743
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