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 .
Applicant's election with traverse of group I, claims 1-9, in the reply filed on July 16, 2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground that there is no undue administrative burden. This is not found persuasive because there is no requirement for administrative burden in a 371 application.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
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.
Claims 1, 3-6 and 8-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sawa (JP 2015-232921; paragraph numbers to attached English language translation) in view of Flatoy (US 2020/0044245).
Claim 1: Sawa discloses a negative electrode for a lithium secondary battery (¶ 11). The electrode includes a negative electrode current collector layer (¶ 12), and a negative electrode active material layer on the negative electrode current collector layer including a composition including silicon-containing active material, conductive material, and binder (¶¶ 23-24, 37-40), wherein the negative electrode active material layer includes a lower layer portion including a surface facing the negative electrode current collector layer (¶¶ 12, 38, 43) and an upper layer portion including a surface opposite to the surface facing the negative electrode current collector layer (¶¶ 40, 43), wherein the silicon-containing active material present in the lower layer portion has an average particle diameter of 1 to 6 microns (¶¶ 15, 19-20, 37), and the silicon-containing active material present in the upper layer portion has an average particle diameter of 7 to 15 microns (¶¶ 14, 21-22, 40), wherein the D50 of the lower layer is smaller than the D50 of the upper layer (¶¶ 14-15, 19-22, 37-40).
Sawa is silent as to the claimed particle diameter distribution. However, Flatoy, in the same field of endeavor, teaches silicon-containing active material including silicon-containing particles having a particle diameter distribution of 0.01 to 30 microns (¶¶ 12, 16). Flatoy explains that the classification operation and reduced fines results in clean particles, favorable anode us, and describes the adverse effect of attached fines (¶¶ 16, 20, 41-44). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the application to have selected classified upper elemental-Si powder within Flatoy’s 3-30 microns individual particle interval in Sawa’s electrode to reduce adhering fine particles that impair anode efficiency.
Claim 3: Sawa discloses the negative electrode layer includes a first negative electrode active material layer and a second negative electrode active material layer wherein the first negative electrode active material layer includes the lower layer portion, the second negative electrode active material layer includes the upper layer portion and the silicon-containing active material present in the first negative electrode active material layer has a D50 of 1 to 6 microns and the second negative electrode active material layer has a D50 of 7 to 15 microns (¶¶ 12, 37-40, 43).
Claim 4: Sawa discloses Si and SiO (¶¶ 37, 40).
Claim 5: Sawa discloses at least 70 % Si and SiO (¶¶ 37, 40).
Claim 6: Sawa discloses the active material being present in an amount of 60-100 wt% of the negative electrode composition (¶¶ 37-41).
Claim 7: Sawa discloses the negative electrode conductive material includes a planar conductive material and a linear conductive material (fig. 1).
Claim 8: Sawa discloses a ratio of a thickness of the upper layer portion to a thickness of the lower layer portion to be 2.97 (¶¶ 39, 41).
Claim 9: Sawa discloses the negative electrode current collector layer has a thickness of 1 to 100 microns, the first negative electrode active material layer has a thickness of 10 to 25 microns and the second negative electrode active material layer has a thickness of 10 to 250 microns (¶¶ 17-18, 37, 41).
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sawa (JP 2015-232921; paragraph numbers to attached English language translation) in view of Flatoy (US 2020/0044245), as applied to claim 1 above, further in view of Duan (CN 111261834; paragraph numbers to attached English language translation).
Claim 2: Sawa is silent as to the negative electrode active material layer being single-layered. However, in the same field of endeavor, Duan discloses an active coating on a current collector with lower and upper regions containing silicon-based particles (¶¶ 27-28; fig. 1). Duan teaches that the illustrated interface in figure 1 may not actually exist (¶ 28). One active coating having lower and upper regions without a discrete interface meets single-layered. Duan teaches that structure, independently permits Si and Si oxide, and places smaller particles nearer the collector (¶¶ 28-29; fig. 1). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the application to have implemented the lower and upper active regions of Sawa in Duan’s expressly disclosed coating without a discrete interface, as a known structural alternative that retains the ordered composition and particle-size regions and their stress-control and ion-transport functions.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sawa (JP 2015-232921; paragraph numbers to attached English language translation) in view of Flatoy (US 2020/0044245), as applied to claim 1 above, further in view of Si (US 2020/0144603).
Claim 7: Sawa is silent as to the negative electrode conductive material includes a planar conductive material and a linear conductive material. However, Si, in the same field of endeavor, prefers a flaky carbon conductive material together with a fibrous carbon conductive material and identifies flaky graphite (¶¶ 127, 130). Si teaches that the flaky material supplies short-distance conduction and the fibrous material supplies long-distance conduction (¶¶ 129-130). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the application to have utilized the material of Si in the conductive material of Sawa to provide both short-distance and long-distance conduction.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LARRY THROWER whose telephone number is (571)270-5517. The examiner can normally be reached 9am-5pm MT M-F.
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/LARRY W THROWER/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1754
