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 Invention II in the reply filed on 6/4/26 is acknowledged.
Claims 1-3 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected Invention I, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 6/4/26.
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.
Claims 4-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP-2015140297-A (O) in view of US-20140225029-A1 (L), US-20140103264-A1 (Liu), and CN-105366667-A (LF).
Regarding claim 4, O teaches a manufacturing method for manufacturing a lithium battery positive material ([0138-152] “Example 1”), the manufacturing method comprising: using a copper source [0069], a titanium source [0068], and lithium nickel manganate powder [0068] to form a precursor of lithium nickel manganese oxide doped with titanium by performing a co-precipitation method ([00138-144] in its entirety), a filtration process [0145], and a sintering process [0150].
O additionally teaches a list of elements that may be doped in addition to titanium, which includes Cu [0069], but O does not provide a specific example where copper is used.
L teaches an LMNO cathode material (Abstract) with 1st cycle energy density based on various dopants (see Fig. 6). L teaches an improvement in energy density from doping copper at the Li and Ni sites (Fig. 6).
The LMNO cathode material of L is a spinel structure [0048] comprising lithium, manganese, nickel, and oxygen. The cathode of O is a spinel structure [0155].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing of the instant invention to elect to add a copper source when forming the cathode material precursor of O in order to improve the energy density of the cathode. It would have been obvious to do because L teaches a benefit of copper in spinel cathode materials like that of O, and O already teaches how copper can be added to the cathode material meaning that one of ordinary skill in the art would have a reasonable chance of success in doing so.
O and L do not teach the addition of carbon and the coating of nitrogen to their cathode materials.
LF teaches a method of forming a doped graphene using supercritical fluid [0002]. LF teaches the graphene coating is applied to an anode [0062]. LF teaches dopant is nitrogen [0014]. LF teaches the method has the advantages of being clean, pollution-free, and inexpensive [0066]. LF teaches the graphene has a high conductivity and retains high capacity under high-rate charge-discharge conditions [0066].
Liu teaches a graphene coated LMO positive active material (Abstract). Liu teaches the LMO has a spinel structure ([0053], “LMn2O-4”, [0007]). Liu teaches the benefit of the coating is improved capacity retention ratio [0067].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing of the instant to coat the active material of O with the doped graphene coating of LF in order to achieve the benefits of a high conductivity coating that is produced in a clean, pollution free, and inexpensive method. It would have been obvious to do because even though Li Fang teaches the graphene coating is applied to negative electrodes, Liu teaches that graphene coatings can be added to positive electrodes with spinel structures to improve the capacity retention ratio.
Claim 4 is unpatentable over the combination of the cited references because the result is a method of making a positive electrode comprising lithium nickel manganese oxide with Cu and Ti which has a coating comprising carbon and nitrogen. The method involves the claimed steps of precipitation, filtration, sintering, and SFE.
While the coating of carbon is not stated as being doping, the instant also only describes the carbon as being coated [0037], so the coatings of Liu and LF meet the requirements of providing a carbon dopant of the instant claim 4.
Regarding claim 5, O teaches copper is added by adding copper sulfate to the aqueous solution containing the lithium, manganese, titanium, and nickel compounds [0068-69]. This makes copper sulfate the copper source so claim 5 is unpatentable over the cited references.
Regarding claim 6, O teaches titanium is added to the solution in the form of titanium sulfate [0068], so claim 3 is unpatentable.
Regarding claim 7, LF teaches the nitrogen source is dopamine [0014], so claim 7 is unpatentable.
Regarding claim 8, LF teaches the carbon source is graphene oxide [0011]. “Comprises” is open-ended language, so graphene oxide meets the requirements of claim 8 of the instant.
Regarding claim 9, O teaches the co-precipitating agents are water, NaOH, and ammonia aqueous solution [0138-139]. O teaches the precipitation reaction to form the first nucleation sites (called “crystallization” in O) was carried out at 25°C for 1 minute [0138-139]. These conditions fall within the range for temperature and time of the instant claim 9 so claim 9 is unpatentable.
Regarding claim 10, O teaches the firing temperature is 900°C [0150].
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..
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/LOUISE JAMES IANNUCCI/Examiner, Art Unit 1721
/ALLISON BOURKE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1721
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