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 .
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.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of Invention I in the reply filed on January 20, 2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that the Examiner failed to show a serious burden in searching both Inventions since Applicant thinks that they would have an overlapping search. As stated in the restriction, Invention II did not make a contribution over the prior art in view of Grimm et al. (US 10532844). This argument is not persuasive because divergent prior art may be needed to address the identified inventions. Grimm et al. (US 10532844) contains all of the recited apparatus elements of claim 6 in Invention II but can be used in a thermoform packaging process instead of the recited electrode assembly manufacturing method of claim 1 of Invention I. Hence the inventions would also require different fields of search (e.g., searching different classes/subclasses or electronic resources, or employing different search strategies or search queries).
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by D1 (KR 20200023853).
As to claim 1, D1 discloses a method of manufacturing an electrode assembly (Abstract). D1 discloses that the method comprises of: stacking a first electrode and second electrode with separator placed therebetween; fixing the stack on the stack table 182 by gripping a first area of the stack with the first gripper 171 and gripping a second area of the stack with the second gripper 172; heating a pressing portions of the first and second area of the stack with the pressing member 181, 182; releasing the first and second held by the respective first and second grippers after the heating step; wherein the first and second areas partially overlap each other (Fig. 1-2 below).
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As to claim 2, the method of claim 1 is taught as seen above. D1 discloses supplying the first electrode 133 to the stack table; supplying the second electrode 143 to the stack table; and supplying the separator 14 to the stack table, wherein the step of stacking the first electrodes, the separators, and the second electrodes on the stack table comprises: continuously supplying the separator to the stack table; rotating the stack table to a first side to face the stack table toward the first electrode when the first electrode is stacked on the stack table; and rotating the stack table to a second side to face the stack table toward the second electrode when the second electrode is stacked, and wherein the rotating of the stack table to the first side and the rotating of the stack table to the second side are alternately performed (Id.).
As to claim 3, the method of claim 2 is taught as seen above. D1 discloses that the first electrode 130, the second electrode 140 and separator 120 are heated as they are supplied during the electrode assembly manufacturing process (P6).
As to claim 4, the method of claim 1 is taught as seen above. D1 discloses that the stack table body heats the stack and that a pair of pressing blocks 181 and 182 are moved towards one another to press and heat the stack (Fig. 1 and 2; P6-P7).
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) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 (KR 20200023853) in view of Yoon et al. (US 20230020972).
As to claim 5, the method of claim 1 is taught as seen above. D1 fails to specifically teach or disclose the specific bonding parameters for the electrode assembly. Yoon discloses a method of making an electrode assembly (Abstract). Yoon discloses that it is known and conventional in the art to form an electrode assembly by heating said assembly at a temperature of 45ºC-70ºC for 5 to 20 second, and at a pressure of 1 MPa to 2.5 MPa (¶65). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to use the bonding parameters of Yoon in the method taught by D1 because one of ordinary skill in the art would have been able to carry out such a substitution to achieve the predictable result of providing a known successful and conventional bonding parameters for forming an electrode assembly. “The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTOPHER C CAILLOUET whose telephone number is (571)270-3968. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9AM-5PM EST.
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/CHRISTOPHER C CAILLOUET/Examiner, Art Unit 1745
/MICHAEL A TOLIN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1745
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