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
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.
Claim(s) 1-3 and 5-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kano (JP Publication 2022-179978) in view of Sato (JP Publication 2022-178410).
Regarding claims 1-3 and 8, Kano discloses a fluoride ion battery comprising a positive electrode having a positive electrode active material layer 12 on the surface of a positive electrode current collector 11, wherein the positive electrode active material layer comprises a positive electrode active material that can consist of one or a mixture (composite) of pure metals, such as Cu and Bi, alloys, metal oxides, and metal fluorides, such as BiF3 (Paragraphs 0016, 0021). Thus, copper could be chosen as a first active material, bismuth could be chosen as a second active material, and a metal fluoride could be chosen as a third active material. It would be known by one of ordinary skill in the art that copper has a higher fluorination potential than bismuth. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that the metal fluoride could be chosen to have a higher conductivity than a fluoride of bismuth. As to claims 6 and 7, Kano teaches that the battery can comprise a solid electrolyte containing fluorine, cerium and strontium (Paragraphs 0045-0046).
Kano fails to disclose that the molar ratio of the first active material to the second active material is 4-35, that the first and second active materials have a primary particle size of 10-500 nm, and that the third active material has a primary particle size of 10-200 nm.
Regarding claims 1 and 8, Sato discloses a fluoride ion battery comprising: a positive electrode active substance layer, wherein the positive electrode active substance layer contains a Cu-based active material, which can consist of Cu and Bi, and a BiF3, and wherein the molar ratio of Cu to Bi in the Cu-based active material is 0.1 to 10 (Paragraphs 0018, 0020, 0024, 0030, 0055). As to claim 5, Sato teaches that the mean particle size of the Cu-based active material is 10-100 nm, and that the average BiF3 of the composite particles is 0.5 to 30 nm (Paragraphs 0026, 0028).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the present invention that the ratio of the first active material to the second active material of Kano could be 4-35 because Sato teaches that a higher ratio of copper improves volume energy density of the battery. It also would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that the different active materials of Kano could have the particles sizes discussed in Sato because Sato teaches that this allows for filling of the gaps between the copper and bismuth particles to improve conductivity of the battery.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRITTANY L RAYMOND whose telephone number is (571)272-6545. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9 am-6 pm.
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BRITTANY L. RAYMOND
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1722
/BRITTANY L RAYMOND/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1722
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