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 Objections
Claims 1-17 objected to because of the following informalities:
Claims 1 and 4 recite “Electron beam welding apparatus comprising” which should be modified to “An electron beam welding apparatus comprising:”
Claims 2-3, 5-8, and 14-17 recite “Electron beam welding apparatus according to” which should be modified to “The electron beam welding apparatus according to.”
Claim 9 recites “(iii) sending data…” which should be modified to “() sending data.”
Claims 10-13 recite “A method of electron beam welding vehicle batteries according to” which should be modified to “The method of electron beam welding vehicle batteries according to.”
Appropriate correction is required.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 1/5/2024 and 6/8/2026 was filed. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 5 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 5 recites the limitation "a battery array" and "a bus bar." There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. It is unclear if the elements are the same as "a battery array" and "a bus bar" previously recited in claim 4. For purposes of examination, they are taken to be the same.
The term “substantially” in claim 6 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “substantially” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. The limitation “substantially adjoining sections” is therefore rendered indefinite, and for purposes of examination, the limitation is understood to be “
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, 2, 9-11, 14, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Karasawa (US20010037558A1) in view of Umegaki (JP2016046068A) with citations made to attached machine translations.
PNG
media_image1.png
732
834
media_image1.png
Greyscale
Fig. 2 of Karasawa
PNG
media_image2.png
244
392
media_image2.png
Greyscale
Fig. 4 of Karasawa
Regarding claim 1, Karasawa teaches Electron beam welding apparatus comprising
an electron beam gun (51, [0058] electronic beam irradiating device) associated with a welding chamber (13) configured for welding of a battery array (25,26) to a bus bar (22a, 23a)
and beam adjustment devices (51, 52, 53, 54) operative in response to a controller (56) to modify beam characteristics and position of an electron beam generated by the electron beam gun ([0069] generating complex waveforms that are obtained by combining, at predetermined ratio, a triangular signal waveform which causes the scanning speed to be constant, and a sinusoidal signal waveform which causes the scanning to become slow at opposite ends of the object being scanned, where scanning speed is understood to modify a characteristic of the beam and scanning modifies the position of the beam),
wherein at least two subsidiary chambers (11, 14) are disposed on opposing sides of the welding chamber (13),
all chambers being evacuable to be under a vacuum (3, 9 ,10, 11, 13, 14 [0024] a plurality of vacuum chambers having different vacuum levels).
Karasawa is silent on a beam detector is positioned proximal the welding chamber to generate data relating to beam characteristics and position the controller configured to respond to data from the beam detector to control synchronously the beam adjustment devices and to create a consistent welding penetration depth for welds formed between a bus bar and a battery array regardless of angle of incidence of an electron beam
Umegaki teaches a beam detector (6, 7) is positioned proximal the welding chamber (1) to generate data relating to beam characteristics and position ([0040-0042] imaging device 6 captures an image of a portion irradiated with the electronic beam to acquire a fluorescence image),
the controller (5) configured to respond to data from the beam detector (6, 7 [0044-0046]) to control synchronously the beam adjustment devices (3,4) and to create a consistent welding penetration depth for welds formed between a bus bar and a battery array regardless of angle of incidence of an electron beam ([0002, 0060] irradiate the entire scanning region with the electron beam with uniform intensity, understood to create a consistent welding penetration depth).
Karasawa and Umegaki are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of electron beams. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have modified Karasawa to incorporate the teachings of Umegaki to have a beam detector and a controller to adjust based on the beam detector in order to irradiate the entire scanning region with the electron beam with uniform intensity by efficiently evaluating and controlling the focal deviation of the electron beam (Umegaki [0060]).
Regarding claim 2, Karasawa and Umegaki teach electron beam welding apparatus according to claim 1, and Karasawa teaches wherein the welding chamber (13) is separable from each subsidiary chamber (11, 14) by a sealable door (8) to allow independent evacuation of each chamber ([0057, 0061]).
Regarding claim 9, Karasawa teaches a method of electron beam welding vehicle batteries comprising:
(i) placing a battery array (25, 26) and a bus bar (22a, 23a) into a welding chamber (13) of an electron beam gun (51);
(iii) generating an electron beam (44) to weld the battery array (25, 26) to the bus bar (22a, 23a) at a plurality of positions (Fig. 4).
Karasawa is silent on (ii) positioning a beam detector proximal the battery array and bus bar, (iii) sending data from the beam detector to a controller to control synchronously beam adjustment devices in response to the data so as to create a consistent welding penetration depth for welds formed between the bus bar and the battery array regardless of angle of incidence of an electron beam.
Umegaki teaches (ii) positioning a beam detector (6) proximal the battery array and bus bar (S);
(iii) sending data from the beam detector (6,7) to a controller (5) to control synchronously beam adjustment devices (3, 4 [0044-0046]) in response to the data so as to create a consistent welding penetration depth for welds formed between the bus bar and the battery array regardless of angle of incidence of an electron beam ([0002, 0060] irradiate the entire scanning region with the electron beam with uniform intensity, understood to create a consistent welding penetration depth).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have modified Karasawa to incorporate the teachings of Umegaki to have a beam detector and a controller to adjust based on the beam detector in order to irradiate the entire scanning region with the electron beam with uniform intensity by efficiently evaluating and controlling the focal deviation of the electron beam (Umegaki [0060]).
Regarding claim 10, Karasawa and Umegaki teach A method of electron beam welding vehicle batteries according to claim 9, and Karasawa teaches further comprising creating a plurality of linear welds between the bus bar and the battery array ([0060] electronic beam 44 is scanned repeatedly along lines).
Regarding claim 11, Karasawa and Umegaki teach A method of electron beam welding vehicle batteries according to claim 9, and Karasawa teaches further comprising placing the battery array and the bus bar in a preliminary chamber (11),
and evacuating the preliminary chamber ([0057] preliminary chamber 11 is returned to the same level of pressure 1.4 Pa) and the welding chamber before moving the array under vacuum into the welding chamber ([0059] When a vacuum of about 1.0 Pa is created within the fourth preliminary chamber 11, the gate 8 on the entrance side of the processing chamber is opened and the jigs are introduced into the first processing chamber 13).
Regarding claim 14, Karasawa and Umegaki teach electron beam welding apparatus according to claim 1, and Karasawa teaches further comprising conveying means ([0036] means for transferring, taken to be the equivalent of a conveying means) associated with the chambers (11, 13, 14) for transport of a battery array and a bus bar between the chambers ([0036] means for transferring in succession the electrode plate group with the collector plates from a preliminary vacuum chamber having a lowest vacuum level to the post-processing chamber, through the plurality of another preliminary vacuum chambers having higher vacuum levels and the processing chamber).
Regarding claim 17, Karasawa and Umegaki teach electron beam welding apparatus according to claim 1, and Karasawa teaches further comprising a linear succession of a plurality of subsidiary chambers (3, 9 ,10, 11, 13, 14 Fig. 2).
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Karasawa (US20010037558A1) in view of Umegaki (JP2016046068A) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of JPS49107942 with citations made to attached machine translations.
Regarding claim 3, Karasawa and Umegaki teach electron beam welding apparatus according to claim 2, but are silent on wherein the sealable door is a foldable door, pivotably moveable from an aperture between the welding chamber and a subsidiary chamber to a side wall of the subsidiary chamber.
JPS49107942 teaches wherein the sealable door (7) is a foldable door, pivotably moveable from an aperture (5) between the welding chamber (3) and a subsidiary chamber (1) to a side wall of the subsidiary chamber (Fig. 1).
Karasawa, Umegaki, and JPS49107942 are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of electron beams. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have modified Karasawa and Umegaki to incorporate the teachings of JPS49107942 to have a foldable and pivotable door in order to be able to effectively adjust pressure within chambers to facilitate heavy beam processing (JPS49107942 PG. 4 lines 1-20).
Claims 4, 5, 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Karasawa (US20010037558A1) in view of JPS49107942 with citations made to attached machine translations.
Regarding claim 4, Karasawa teaches Electron beam welding apparatus comprising
an electron beam gun (51, [0058] electronic beam irradiating device) associated with a welding chamber (13) configured for welding of a battery array (25,26) to a bus bar (22a, 23a)
and beam adjustment devices (51, 52, 53, 54) operative in response to a controller (56) to modify beam characteristics and position of an electron beam generated by the electron beam gun ([0069] generating complex waveforms that are obtained by combining, at predetermined ratio, a triangular signal waveform which causes the scanning speed to be constant, and a sinusoidal signal waveform which causes the scanning to become slow at opposite ends of the object being scanned, where scanning speed is understood to modify a characteristic of the beam and scanning modifies the position of the beam),
all chambers being evacuable to be under a vacuum (3, 9 ,10, 11, 13, 14 [0024] a plurality of vacuum chambers having different vacuum levels),
wherein at least two subsidiary chambers (11, 14) are disposed on opposing sides of the welding chamber (13), wherein the welding chamber (13) is separable from each subsidiary chamber (11, 14) by a sealable door (8) to allow independent evacuation of each chamber ([0057, 0061]).
Karasawa is silent on wherein the sealable door is a foldable door, pivotably moveable from an aperture between the welding chamber and a subsidiary chamber to a side wall of the subsidiary chamber.
PNG
media_image3.png
296
446
media_image3.png
Greyscale
Fig. 1 of JPS49107942
JPS49107942 teaches wherein the sealable door (7) is a foldable door, pivotably moveable from an aperture (5) between the welding chamber (3) and a subsidiary chamber (1) to a side wall of the subsidiary chamber (Fig. 1).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have modified Karasawa to incorporate the teachings of JPS49107942 to have a foldable and pivotable door in order to be able to effectively adjust pressure within chambers to facilitate heavy beam processing (JPS49107942 PG. 4 lines 1-20).
Regarding claim 5, Karasawa and JPS49107942 teach electron beam welding apparatus according to claim 4, and Karasawa teaches further comprising conveying means ([0036] means for transferring, taken to be the equivalent of a conveying means) associated with the chambers (11, 13, 14) for transport of a battery array and a bus bar between the chambers ([0036] means for transferring in succession the electrode plate group with the collector plates from a preliminary vacuum chamber having a lowest vacuum level to the post-processing chamber, through the plurality of another preliminary vacuum chambers having higher vacuum levels and the processing chamber).
Regarding claim 8, Karasawa and JPS49107942 teach electron beam welding apparatus according to claim 4, and Karasawa teaches further comprising a linear succession of a plurality of subsidiary chambers (3, 9 ,10, 11, 13, 14 Fig. 2).
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Karasawa (US20010037558A1) in view of JPS49107942 as applied to claim 5 above, and further in view of Hinrichs (US3535489A).
Regarding claim 6, Karasawa and JPS49107942 teach electron beam welding apparatus according to claim 5, but are silent on wherein the conveying means comprises a conveyor means comprising three substantially adjoining sections one section disposed in each chamber.
Hinrichs teaches wherein the conveying means comprises a conveyor means comprising three substantially adjoining sections (50, 53, 55,60), one section disposed in each chamber (40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45).
Karasawa, JPS49107942, and Hinrichs are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of electron beams. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have modified Karasawa and JPS49107942 to incorporate the teachings of Hinrichs to have a conveyor means with sections in each chamber in order to be able to automatically move components through multiple chambers (Col. 6 lines 1-10).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Karasawa (US20010037558A1) in view of JPS49107942 as applied to claim 5 above, and further in view of Zhang (CN105290613B) with citations made to attached machine translations.
Regarding claim 7, Karasawa and JPS49107942 teach electron beam welding apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the conveying means comprises a pushing element.
Zhang teaches wherein the conveying means comprises a pushing element (9, welding table 7 is moved to the welding chamber 2 along the working track 9 under external control understood to be the equivalent of a pushing element).
Karasawa, JPS49107942, and Zhang are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of electron beams. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have modified Karasawa and JPS49107942 to incorporate the teachings of Zhang to have a conveyor means with a pushing element so that the work may be transported to each chamber (Zhang [0036]).
Claims 12 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Karasawa (US20010037558A1) in view of Umegaki (JP2016046068A) as applied to claims 1 and 9 above, and further in view of Hinrichs (US3535489A).
Regarding claim 12, Karasawa and Umegaki teach a method of electron beam welding vehicle batteries according to claim 9, but are silent on wherein the conveying means comprises a conveyor means comprising three substantially adjoining sections one section disposed in each chamber.
Hinrichs teaches wherein the conveying means comprises a conveyor means comprising three substantially adjoining sections (50, 53, 55,60), one section disposed in each chamber (40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45).
Karasawa, Umegaki, and Hinrichs are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of electron beams. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have modified Karasawa and Umegaki to incorporate the teachings of Hinrichs to have a conveyor means with sections in each chamber in order to be able to automatically move components through multiple chambers (Col. 6 lines 1-10).
Regarding claim 15, Karasawa and Umegaki teach electron beam welding apparatus according to claim 1, but are silent on wherein the conveying means comprises a conveyor means comprising three substantially adjoining sections one section disposed in each chamber.
Hinrichs teaches wherein the conveying means comprises a conveyor means comprising three substantially adjoining sections (50, 53, 55,60), one section disposed in each chamber (40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have modified Karasawa and Umegaki to incorporate the teachings of Hinrichs to have a conveyor means with sections in each chamber in order to be able to automatically move components through multiple chambers (Col. 6 lines 1-10).
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Karasawa (US20010037558A1) in view of Umegaki (JP2016046068A) as applied to claim 9 above, and further in view of Wynn (US10205150B2).
Regarding claim 13, Karasawa and Umegaki teach a method of electron beam welding vehicle batteries according to claim 9, but are silent on wherein the battery array is an array of cylindrical cells.
Wynn teaches wherein the battery array is an array of cylindrical cells (Col.8 lines 60-67 cylindrical cells).
Karasawa, Umegaki, and Wynn are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of electron beams. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have modified Karasawa and Umegaki to incorporate the teachings of Wynn to have cylindrical cells to facilitate making batteries that provide access to both terminals at a single end portion of the battery (Wynn Col. 7 lines 45-55).
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Karasawa (US20010037558A1) in view of Umegaki (JP2016046068A) as applied to claim 14 above, and further in view of Zhang (CN105290613B) with citations made to attached machine translations.
Regarding claim 16, Karasawa and Umegaki teach electron beam welding apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the conveying means comprises a pushing element.
Zhang teaches wherein the conveying means comprises a pushing element (9, welding table 7 is moved to the welding chamber 2 along the working track 9 under external control understood to be the equivalent of a pushing element).
Karasawa, Umegaki, and Zhang are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of electron beams. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to have modified Karasawa and Umegaki to incorporate the teachings of Zhang to have a conveyor means with a pushing element so that the work may be transported to each chamber (Zhang [0036]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ABIGAIL RHUE whose telephone number is (571)272-4615. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 10-6.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Steven Crabb can be reached at (571) 270-5095. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ABIGAIL H RHUE/Examiner, Art Unit 3761 6/24/2026
/WOODY A LEE JR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3761
Prosecution Insights