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 .
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.
Claims 1 and 4-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ohsawa et al. (US 20170279125).
With respect to claim 1, Ohsawa teaches an electrode current collector (para. [0036]-[0041], [0054]-[0055]) comprising, in the following order:
a metal foil/layer (para. [0052]);
an electrically-conductive resin layer (para. [0037]-[0041]); and
a carbon particle layer/(conductive member positioned between the electrically conductive resin layer and the electrode active material layer) ([0054]-[0055], [0057]-[0058]),
wherein the electrically-conductive resin layer includes a contiguous phase and a dispersed phase, the contiguous phase includes a resin material/(polymer) (para. [0037]-[0039]), the dispersed phase includes electrically-conductive particles/(conductive filler powder) (para. [0041], [0044]), and the carbon particle layer/(conductive member) includes electrically-conductive carbon particles (para. [0054]-[0055], [0057]-[0058]).
Ohsawa teaches in para. [0052] that the current collector (the conductive resin layer) may have another layer/(metal layer) in addition to the conductive resin layer in order to block the movement of lithium ions between the single battery layers (para. [0052]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing for the invention to choose to provide another metal layer in addition to the conductive resin layer in Ohsawa, in order to block the movement of lithium ions between the single battery layers. Consequently, since the carbon particle layer/(conductive member) (Figure 3, 42) is between the electrically conductive resin layer (41) and the active material layer (43) (para. [0054]), then the additional metal layer is bound to be on the opposite/other side of the electrically conductive resin layer (41), which would provide an electrode current collector in the order instantly claimed.
With respect to claim 4, Ohsawa teaches wherein the electrically-conductive resin layer includes the electrically-conductive particles/(acetylene black) in a mass fraction of 20% (para. [0032]), which falls within the instantly claimed range of from 5 to 30%, with the remainder being made up of the resin material/(polypropylene); and the carbon particle layer/(conductive member) (para. [0054]-[0055], [0057]-[0058]) includes the electrically-conductive carbon particles in a mass fraction of 20-95% (para. [0065]), which overlaps with the instantly claimed range of 50% or more. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing for the invention to try different mass fractions of the electrically-conductive particles/(acetylene black) and of the resin material/(polypropylene) in the electrically-conductive resin layer, and it would have been obvious to try different mass fractions of the electrically-conductive carbon particles in the carbon particle layer/(conductive member) for optimization purposes in order to find a balance between performance and cost of constructing the electrode current collector.
With respect to claim 5, Ohsawa teaches wherein the electrically-conductive particles include at least one selected from the group consisting of electrically-conductive carbon particles (para. [0041]) and metal particles.
With respect to claim 6, Ohsawa teaches wherein the electrically-conductive particles include at least one selected from the group consisting of acetylene black (para. [0042]), furnace black, graphite, vapor grown carbon fibers, carbon nanotubes, carbon nanofibers, carbon nanospheres, nickel particles, tin particles, copper particles, nickel-tin alloy particles, copper-tin alloy particles, and copper-nickel alloy particles.
With respect to claim 7, Ohsawa teaches wherein results of current mapping of a surface of the carbon particle layer measured with a scanning probe microscope have a standard deviation of 0.3 nA or less, and the results of current mapping are measured in a square measurement region of 80 um X 80 µm at an applied voltage of 10 V – since Ohsawa teaches the instantly claimed current collector, then it would be expected that the carbon particle layer/(conductive member) would perform as instantly claimed.
With respect to claim 8, Ohsawa teaches a bipolar (para. [0027], [0029]) battery comprising the electrode current collector according to claim 1.
With respect to claim 9, Ohsawa teaches all-solid-state battery (para. [0019]) comprising the electrode current collector according to claim 1.
With respect to claim 10, Ohsawa teaches a method of producing an electrode current collector, comprising, in the following order: (a) forming a resin composition by mixing a resin material/(polymer) and electrically-conductive particles/(conductive filler) (para. [0051]); (b) directly laminating the resin composition in molten form on a metal foil/(another metal layer) by an extrusion lamination method to form an electrically-conductive resin layer (para. [0051]-[0052]); and
(c) forming a carbon particle layer/(conductive member) by applying electrically-conductive carbon particles/(conductive member) to the electrically-conductive resin layer (para. [0054]-[0055], [0057]).
Claims 2-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ohsawa et al. (US 20170279125), as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of JP 6988683 B2 (hereinafter JP’683) – translation attached and relied upon below.
With respect to claim 2, Ohsawa discloses all claim limitations as set forth above including wherein the resin material is an olefin-based resin (para. [0039]); however, Ohsawa fails to teach wherein the metal layer is an aluminum foil.
JP’683 teaches a negative electrode (Figure 3, 30) comprising a negative electrode active material layer (20) applied onto a current collector (10), wherein the current collector (10) comprises a metal layer (12) and an electrically-conductive resin layer/(coat layer) (14) containing a spherical carbon material (2), a resin (4), and an inorganic filler (6) (as illustrated) (page 2, last 3 paragraphs), wherein the metal layer (12) comprises an aluminum foil layer in order to provide a metal layer that is lightweight, has excellent conductivity, and is advantageous in terms of cost and availability (page 4, last 8 lines).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing for the invention to have the metal layer in Ohsawa comprise aluminum foil, as taught by JP’683, in order to provide a metal layer that is lightweight, has excellent conductivity, and is advantageous in terms of cost and availability.
With respect to claim 3, Ohsawa discloses all claim limitations as set forth above including wherein:
the electrically-conductive resin layer has a thickness of 5-100 um (para. [0050]), which encompasses the instantly claimed range of from 5 to 20 µm, and
the carbon particle layer/(conductive member) has a thickness 0.01 to 30 um (para. [0067]), which encompasses the instantly claimed range of from 0.5 to 5 µm.
Ohsawa fails to teach wherein the metal foil/(metal layer) has a thickness from 20 to 40 µm. JP’683 teaches a negative electrode (Figure 3, 30) comprising a negative electrode active material layer (20) applied onto a current collector (10), wherein the current collector (10) comprises an aluminum foil layer (12) and an electrically-conductive resin layer/(coat layer) (14) containing a spherical carbon material (2), a resin (4), and an inorganic filler (6) (as illustrated); and wherein the aluminum foil layer (12) has a thickness of 5 μm to 20 μm (page 4, last 8 lines), which touches the instantly claimed range of 20 to 40 µm in order to provide a metal foil having an appropriate thickness for use in an all-solid-state battery.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing for the invention to have the metal layer in Ohsawa comprise a metal foil having a thickness of 5 μm to 20 μm, which touches the instantly claimed range of 20 to 40 µm, as taught by JP’683, in order to provide a metal foil having an appropriate thickness for use in an all-solid-state battery.
Conclusion
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/KAITY V CHANDLER/ 6/23/2026Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1725
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