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 .
This application is a 371 of PCT/EP2022/066850 06/21/2022
DETAILED ACTION
The Applicant has elected Invention | (claims 1-33) with Species 1 (cl.7), 4 (cl.13), 6 (cl.16), and 14 (cl.28) for the further prosecution as filed in the response dated 7/30/2026 without traverse. Claims 10-11, 14, 17-21, 26-27, and 34-36 have been withdrawn as non-elected claims; Claims 1-9, 12-13, 15-16, 22-25, and 28-33 remain for Examination, wherein claim 1 is an independent claim.
Claim Objections
Claims 1 and 7 are objected to because of the following informalities: the limitation of “LIB” on line 1 of claim 1 and on lines 2-3 of claim 7 should apply whole term. Appropriate correction is required.
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(s) 1-9, 12-13, 15-16, 22-25, and 28-33 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rohde et al (US-PG-pub 2021/0324495 A1, thereafter PG’495) in view of Rohde et al (US-PG-pub 2022/0013820 A1, thereafter PG’820).
Regarding claims 1-2, PG’495 teaches a manufacturing process for the recovery of transition metal from spent lithium ion batteries containing nickel, wherein said process comprises the steps of (a) heating a lithium containing transition metal oxide material to a temperature in the range of from 200 to 900° C. in the presence of H2, (b) treatment of the product obtained in step (a) with an aqueous medium, (c) solid-solid separation for the removal of Ni from the solid residue of step (b), (d) recovery of Li as hydroxide or salt from the solution obtained in step (b), (e) extraction of Ni and, if applicable, Co from the solid Ni-concentrate obtained in step (c). (Abstract, Examples, and claims of PG’495), which reads on all of the essential process steps as claimed in the instant claim. PG’495 does not specify applying washing before heating as claimed in the instant claim 1. PG’820 teaches a process for the recovery of transition metals from batteries comprising treating a transition metal material (Abstract of PG’820). PG’820 teaches that “Before step (a) it is preferred to wash the transition metal material with water and to thereby remove liquid impurities and water-soluble impurities from the transition metal material. Said washing step may be improved by a grinding for example, in a ball mill or stirred ball mill. The washed transition metal material may be recovered by a solid-liquid separation step.” (par.[0035] of PG’820). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to apply water washing before heating in the waste battery recovering process as demonstrated by PG’820 in the process of PG’495 in order to remove liquid impurities and water-soluble impurities from the transition metal material (Abstract, examples, and claims PG’820).
Regarding claims 3-4 and 29-31, PG’495 specify applying ammonia or an alkali metal hydroxide to obtain a solution with a pH-value ranging from 2.5 to 8 and PG’820 specify applying base to control the pH value (par.[0038] of PG’820).
Regarding claims 5 and 15-16, PG’495 indicates heating a lithium containing transition metal oxide material to a temperature in the range of from 200 to 900° C. in the presence of H2, which reads on the reducing agent as claimed in claims 15-16, and overlaps the claimed heating temperature range of 300-1200oC in claim 5. Overlapping in heating-temperature range creates a prima facie case of obviousness, MPEP 2144 05 I. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to optimize the heating temperature range as claimed from the disclosure of PG’495 since PG’495 teaches the same manufacturing process for the recovery of transition metal from spent lithium-ion batteries as claimed throughout whole disclosing range.
Regarding claim 6, PG’495 indicates powder form of reduced material (Par.[0083], [0086], and [0091] of PG’495).
Regarding claims 7-8, PG’495 indicates recovering the used lithium-ion battery (abstract of PG’495).
Regarding claim 9, PG’495 indicates 133 mg of Li+ in 5.5 g material (Example 1 on par.[0168] of Pg’495), which reads on the claimed Li in the material in the instant claim.
Regarding claims 12-13, PG’495 indicates reducing in a tube furnace (par.[0166] of PG’495).
Regarding claim 22, PG’495 indicates Ni metal removing (Abstract, claims and examples of PG’495).
Regarding claims 23-24, PG’495 indicates that a filtration after the water treatment. Both extracts may be kept separate in order to separate the different Li-species dissolved (par.[0079] of PG’495).
Regarding claim 25, PG’495 indicates applying carbon dioxide to treat Li containing material (par.[0097] and claim 19 of PG’495).
Regarding claim 32, PG’495 indicates acidic extraction of Ni and Co from the solid Ni-Concentrate (par.[0173]-[0174] of PG’495).
Regarding alim 33, both PG’495 and PG’820 indicate applying alkaline leaching in the process (par.[0132] of PG’495 and par[0103] of PG’820).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JIE YANG whose telephone number is (571)270-1884. The examiner can normally be reached IFP.
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/JIE YANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1734
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