DETAILED CORRESPONDENCE
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
2. Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, or 365(c) is acknowledged. Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d) or (f), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Information Disclosure Statement
3. Information disclosure statement (IDS), submitted March 1, 2024, has been received and considered by the examiner.
Claim Interpretation
4. All “wherein” clauses are given patentable weight unless otherwise noted. Please see MPEP 2111.04 regarding optional claim language.
5. The claims recite “staple fiber” and while the instant disclosure does not describe what is meant by “staple fiber”, this appears to be a known term of art describing a fiber having a relatively short, discrete length. See e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/staple-fiber.
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.
6. Claims 1-9 and 12 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. Claims 1 and 12 recite “wherein the thermal diffusion layer has a thermal conductivity in its planar direction from 10 to 200 times in its thickness direction” but this limitation is unclear and indefinite. The limitation lacks a connection between the thermal conductivity of the layer in the planar and the thickness directions. In the interest of compact prosecution, the limitation will be interpreted in accord with the specification, which recites “wherein the thermal diffusion layer has a thermal conductivity in its planar direction from 10 to 200 times as large as the thermal conductivity in its thickness direction”. Claims 2-9 are rejected as being dependent upon a rejected base claim.
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 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
7. Claims 1-3, 5, and 8 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Erb JR. US PG Publication 2003/0099833 (hereinafter “Erb”) in view of Imae US Patent 9,984,794 and Park KR2008-0018035.
Regarding Claims 1-3 and 8, Erb discloses sheet (“thermal runaway suppression” is considered an intended use; see below) comprising a thermal consumption layer (thermal consumption being an intended use for which the prior art is capable) comprising a silica-based inorganic fiber sheet comprising 60 % by weight to 99.5 % by weight of dehydration-condensable silica-based inorganic fiber (BELCOTEX fibers, paras 0015-0016, 0033-0043, taught by instant application to be a brand name for silica-based inorganic fiber having a hydroxyl group being dehydration-condensable, see e.g. paras 0056-0078 of the published instant application show that BELCOTEX meets the claimed fibers), the taught range overlapping and therefore rendering obvious the claimed range of 50 % by weight to 80 %; and discloses that the thickness of this sheet is preferably from 13 microns to 6.35 mm (see e.g. para 0057, 0. 5 mil to 250 mil), a range of thickness that overlaps the claimed range of a paper having a thickness of 0.1 to 2.0 mm and a fiber sheet obtained by forming the silica-based inorganic fiber staple fiber into a sheet (paras 0037, 0052) having a thickness of 0.1 to 1.5 mm, and exemplified as a sheet having thickness of 0.8 mm (para 0059), meeting Claims 2 and 3. See entire disclosure of Erb and especially the paragraphs cited above.
Erb fails to specifically disclose wherein the sheet comprises a thermal diffusion layer having a thermal conductivity in its planar direction from 10 to 200 times as great as the thermal conductivity in its thickness direction. However, in the same field of endeavor of design of thermal/fire resistant fiber sheet design, Imae discloses a thermal runaway suppression sheet comprising a thermal energy consumption layer F and a thermal diffusion layer (expanded graphite layer) G (meeting Claim 8), wherein the thermal energy consumption layer is a silica-based inorganic fiber sheet F comprising a silica-based inorganic fiber having a hydroxyl group (BELCOTEX, col 3, lines 32-55) and teaches that the thermal diffusion layer G can have a thickness of e.g. 10 µm or 0.01 mm to 3mm (col 7 lines 7-60). Imae further teaches that the benefit of combining this thermal diffusion layer G with the BELCOTEX layer F is that it helps to conduct thermal energy throughout the entire surface even when locally heated so that the dehydration condensation reaction occurs over the entire nonwoven fabric F which achieves excellent temperature drop by efficiently consuming thermal energy (see col 8, lines 5-17). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the instant application to include in the sheet of Erb a thermal diffusion layer having a thermal conductivity in its planar direction greater than that in its thickness direction because Imae teaches that this provides a clear benefit of helps to conduct thermal energy throughout the entire surface even when locally heated so that the dehydration condensation reaction occurs over the entire nonwoven BELCOTEX fabric, which achieves excellent temperature drop by efficiently consuming thermal energy.
Although Erb modified by Imae does not disclose wherein the thermal runaway suppression sheet (including both the thermal energy consumption BELCOTEX layer and the thermal diffusion graphite layer) has a thickness of 3 mm or less, since Erb teaches a thickness of the BELCOTEX layer of less than 6.35 mm (exemplifying e.g. a sheet having 0.88 mm thickness) and Imae teaches that the graphite layer should have a thickness of 0.01 mm to 3mm (all recited above), the skilled artisan would be capable of selecting values for these elements that would result in the thermal runaway suppression sheet having the layers together to give a total thickness of less than 3 mm. In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (The prior art taught carbon monoxide concentrations of "about 1-5%" while the claim was limited to "more than 5%." The court held that "about 1-5%" allowed for concentrations slightly above 5% thus the ranges overlapped.); In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1469-71, 43 USPQ2d 1362, 1365-66 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (Claim reciting thickness of a protective layer as falling within a range of "50 to 100 Angstroms" considered prima facie obvious in view of prior art reference teaching that "for suitable protection, the thickness of the protective layer should be not less than about 10 nm [i.e., 100 Angstroms]." The court stated that "by stating that 'suitable protection' is provided if the protective layer is 'about' 100 Angstroms thick, [the prior art reference] directly teaches the use of a thickness within [applicant's] claimed range."). Similarly, a prima facie case of obviousness exists where the claimed ranges and prior art ranges do not overlap but are close enough that one skilled in the art would have expected them to have the same properties. Titanium Metals Corp. of America v. Banner, 778 F.2d 775, 227 USPQ 773 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (Court held as proper a rejection of a claim directed to an alloy of "having 0.8% nickel, 0.3% molybdenum, up to 0.1% iron, balance titanium" as obvious over a reference disclosing alloys of 0.75% nickel, 0.25% molybdenum, balance titanium and 0.94% nickel, 0.31% molybdenum, balance titanium.).
Imae discusses the thermal anisotropy of the graphite sheet as being excellent in spreading heat in the plane of the sheet (see e.g. col 7, lines 45-50) and so the skilled artisan would understand that the thermal diffusion layer of Erb modified by Imae has a thermal conductivity in its planar direction that is larger than the thermal conductivity in its thickness direction. Erb modified by Imae does not specifically recite wherein the thermal diffusion layer has a thermal conductivity in its planar direction from 10 to 200 times as large as the thermal conductivity in its thickness direction. However, in the same field of endeavor of expanded graphite sheet use to improve thermal properties of electronic type devices, Park teaches that expanded graphite sheets having high thermal anisotropy have high thermal conductivity in the plane direction and low thermal conductivity in the thickness direction, to a ratio approaching 20:1 to 50:1 (see page 8). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the instant application to design the thermal diffusion layer of Erb modified by Imae such that the thermal diffusion layer has a thermal conductivity in its planar direction from 10 to 200 times as large as the thermal conductivity in its thickness direction because Park teaches a range of thermal conductivity in the planar direction as being e.g. 20 to 50 times larger than thermal conductivity in the thickness direction and “[w]here the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine experimentation.” See In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456, 105 USPQ 233, 235 (CCPA 1955). The discovery of an optimum value of a known result effective variable, without producing any new or unexpected results, is within the ambit of a person of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Boesch, 205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980) (see MPEP § 2144.05, II.).
Regarding Claim 5, Erb teaches that the thermal runaway suppression sheet is a silica-based inorganic fiber sheet comprising 60 % by weight to 99.5 % by weight of dehydration-condensable silica-based inorganic fiber (para 0016), the taught range overlapping and therefore rendering obvious the claimed range of 50 % by weight to 80 %; the sheet further comprising from 1 % by weight to 5 % by weight of glass fiber (para 0048, overlapping and therefore rendering obvious the claimed range of 2 % by weight to 20 % by weight) and further comprising from 0.5 % by weight to preferably 20 % by weight organic fiber (para 0044, encompassing and therefore rendering obvious the claimed range of 3 % by weight to 15 % by weight). Erb (and modifed Erb) does not disclose a single embodiment with the claimed amounts of the three components (these components are listed above in the rejection of Claim 1) but since Erb teaches values of each component overlapping the claimed ranges, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to design a silica-based inorganic fiber sheet of Erb modified by Imae and Park having the three components in the claimed ranges because In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (The prior art taught carbon monoxide concentrations of "about 1-5%" while the claim was limited to "more than 5%." The court held that "about 1-5%" allowed for concentrations slightly above 5% thus the ranges overlapped.); In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1469-71, 43 USPQ2d 1362, 1365-66 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (Claim reciting thickness of a protective layer as falling within a range of "50 to 100 Angstroms" considered prima facie obvious in view of prior art reference teaching that "for suitable protection, the thickness of the protective layer should be not less than about 10 nm [i.e., 100 Angstroms]." The court stated that "by stating that 'suitable protection' is provided if the protective layer is 'about' 100 Angstroms thick, [the prior art reference] directly teaches the use of a thickness within [applicant's] claimed range."). Similarly, a prima facie case of obviousness exists where the claimed ranges and prior art ranges do not overlap but are close enough that one skilled in the art would have expected them to have the same properties. Titanium Metals Corp. of America v. Banner, 778 F.2d 775, 227 USPQ 773 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (Court held as proper a rejection of a claim directed to an alloy of "having 0.8% nickel, 0.3% molybdenum, up to 0.1% iron, balance titanium" as obvious over a reference disclosing alloys of 0.75% nickel, 0.25% molybdenum, balance titanium and 0.94% nickel, 0.31% molybdenum, balance titanium.).
8. Claims 4 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Erb JR. US PG Publication 2003/0099833 (hereinafter “Erb”) in view of Imae US Patent 9,984,794 and Park KR2008-0018035, as applied to Claims 1 and 3, and further in view of Belunova US Patent 5,569,423.
Regarding Claims 4 and 7, Erb modified by Imae and Park discloses the thermal runaway suppression sheet as described in the rejection of Claims 1 and 3, which are incorporated herein in their entireties. Modified Erb does not specifically disclose wherein a content of the silica based inorganic fiber contained in the silica-based inorganic fiber sheet is from 100 kg/m3 to 400 kg/m3 (Claim 4) or wherein the thermal energy consumption layer has a bulk density of 150 kg/m3 to 400 kg/m3 (Claim 7). However, in the same field of endeavor of silica fiber heat insulating sheets, Belunova teaches that this type of sheet is beneficially designed to have density (which would be understood to be bulk density) of 100 kg/m3 to 400 kg/m3 which is consistent with the densities of known reusable heat insulating fibrous materials (see e.g. col 1, lines 23-29 and col 3, lines 49-55). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the instant application to design the thermal runaway suppression sheet of Erb modified by Imae and Park such that a content of the silica based inorganic fiber contained in the silica-based inorganic fiber sheet is from 100 kg/m3 to 400 kg/m3 (meeting claim 4) and wherein the thermal energy consumption layer has a bulk density of 150 kg/m3 to 400 kg/m3 (meeting Claim 7) because Belunova teaches that this type of sheet is desirably designed to have density of 100 kg/m3 to 400 kg/m3 which is consistent with the densities of known reusable heat insulating fibrous materials.
Although Belunova does not specifically discuss the density value as a content of the silica-based inorganic fiber sheet (the thermal energy consumption layer), the skilled artisan would understand that since the sheet has a high percentage of the silica-based inorganic fiber, the bulk density of the sheet would be fairly close numerically to the content of said fiber, and given the wide range of values claimed, the choice of the skilled artisan would be capable of choosing many compositions for the thermal energy consumption layer that would result in a silica fiber content that is in the claimed range of 100 kg/m3 to 400 kg/m3.
9. Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Erb JR. US PG Publication 2003/0099833 (hereinafter “Erb”) in view of Imae US Patent 9,984,794 and Park KR2008-0018035, as applied to Claim 5, and further in view of Katagiri US PG Publication 2007/0292673.
Regarding Claim 6, Erb modified by Imae and Park discloses the claimed thermal runaway suppression sheet as described in the rejection of Claim 5, which is incorporated herein in its entirety. Modified Erb does not specifically disclose wherein the sheet further comprises a fibrous mineral. However, in the same field of endeavor of fibrous sheets that are heat-insulating, Katagiri teaches the use of e.g. glass fibers and mineral fibers (e.g. potassium titanate or sepiolite, paras 0030 and 0037) as functional equivalents, and so it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective fiiling date of the instant application to use a mineral fiber in place of (or with) the glass fiber of Erb modified by Imae and Park because Katagiri teaches that these materials are useful to improve/modify the desired functions and characteristics of the inorganic fiber paper (para 0037).
10. Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Erb JR. US PG Publication 2003/0099833 (hereinafter “Erb”) in view of Imae US Patent 9,984,794 and Park KR2008-0018035, as applied to Claim 1, and further in view of Tomioka JP2012-084347.
Regarding Claim 9, Erb modified by Imae and Park discloses the thermal runaway suppression sheet as described in the rejection of Claim 1, which is incorporated herein in its entirety. Modified Erb discloses wherein the thermal diffusion layer is an expanded graphite film but does not specifically disclose herein the thermal diffusion layer is a boron nitride film. However, in the same field of endeavor of heat transfer prevention sheet design, Tomioka discloses wherein boron nitride particles having a scale shape can be used in a layer between battery cells to conduct heat in the planar direction (having thermal anisotropy) while suppressing heat conduction in the thickness direction and can also provide a benefit of extending outward from a portion of the peripheral edge of an adjacent single cell to enable heat dissipation from the extended portion into a heat dissipation space (para 0011). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the instant application to design the thermal runaway suppression sheet of Erb modified by Imee and Park such that the thermal diffusion layer is a boron nitride film because Tomioka teaches that boron nitride particles having a scale shape can be used in a layer between battery cells to conduct heat in the planar direction (having thermal anisotropy) while suppressing heat conduction in the thickness direction and can also provide a benefit of extending outward from a portion of the peripheral edge of an adjacent single cell to enable heat dissipation from the extended portion into a heat dissipation space.
11. Claims 10 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Erb JR. US PG Publication 2003/0099833 (hereinafter “Erb”).
Regarding Claim 10, Erb discloses a silica-based inorganic fiber sheet comprising 60 % by weight to 99.5 % by weight of dehydration-condensable silica-based inorganic fiber (BELCOTEX fibers, paras 0015-0016, 0033-0043, taught by instant application to be a brand name for silica-based inorganic fiber having a hydroxyl group being dehydration-condensable, see e.g. paras 0056-0078 of the published instant application show that BELCOTEX meets the claimed fibers), the taught range overlapping and therefore rendering obvious the claimed range of 50 % by weight to 80 %; the sheet further comprising from 1 % by weight to 5 % by weight of glass fiber (para 0048, overlapping and therefore rendering obvious the claimed range of 2 % by weight to 20 % by weight); and further comprising from 0.5 % by weight to preferably 20 % by weight organic fiber (para 0044, encompassing and therefore rendering obvious the claimed range of 3 % by weight to 15 % by weight). Erb does not disclose a single embodiment with the claimed amounts of the three components but since Erb teaches values of each component overlapping the claimed ranges, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to design a silica-based inorganic fiber sheet having the three components in the claimed ranges because In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (The prior art taught carbon monoxide concentrations of "about 1-5%" while the claim was limited to "more than 5%." The court held that "about 1-5%" allowed for concentrations slightly above 5% thus the ranges overlapped.); In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1469-71, 43 USPQ2d 1362, 1365-66 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (Claim reciting thickness of a protective layer as falling within a range of "50 to 100 Angstroms" considered prima facie obvious in view of prior art reference teaching that "for suitable protection, the thickness of the protective layer should be not less than about 10 nm [i.e., 100 Angstroms]." The court stated that "by stating that 'suitable protection' is provided if the protective layer is 'about' 100 Angstroms thick, [the prior art reference] directly teaches the use of a thickness within [applicant's] claimed range."). Similarly, a prima facie case of obviousness exists where the claimed ranges and prior art ranges do not overlap but are close enough that one skilled in the art would have expected them to have the same properties. Titanium Metals Corp. of America v. Banner, 778 F.2d 775, 227 USPQ 773 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (Court held as proper a rejection of a claim directed to an alloy of "having 0.8% nickel, 0.3% molybdenum, up to 0.1% iron, balance titanium" as obvious over a reference disclosing alloys of 0.75% nickel, 0.25% molybdenum, balance titanium and 0.94% nickel, 0.31% molybdenum, balance titanium.).
Regarding Claim 11, this claim further defines an optional limitation that is not taught by the prior art and so the further defining limitations of Claim 11 are not required to be met by the prior art.
12. Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over in view of Imae US Patent 9,984,794 in view of Park KR2008-0018035 and Miller US PG Publication 2019/0207188.
Regarding Claim 12, Imae discloses a thermal runaway suppression sheet comprising a thermal energy consumption layer F and a thermal diffusion layer (expanded graphite layer) G, wherein the thermal energy consumption layer is a silica-based inorganic fiber sheet F comprising a silica-based inorganic fiber having a hydroxyl group (col 3, lines 32-55) and has a thickness is not particularly limited, but has a preferable thickness of e.g. 3 mm to 10 mm (col 4, lines 54-67), while the thermal diffusion layer G can have a thickness of e.g. 10 µm or 0.01 mm to 3mm (col 7 lines 7-60) and so where the layers F and G are stacked G/F to form a thermal runaway suppression sheet (see e.g. col 8, lines 5-18), the thickness of the resulting thermal runaway suppression sheet comprising these layers could be selected by the skilled artisan to be e.g. 3.01 mm, which is so close to the claimed range of 3 mm or less that the skilled artisan would expect the same properties to arise. In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (The prior art taught carbon monoxide concentrations of "about 1-5%" while the claim was limited to "more than 5%." The court held that "about 1-5%" allowed for concentrations slightly above 5% thus the ranges overlapped.); In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1469-71, 43 USPQ2d 1362, 1365-66 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (Claim reciting thickness of a protective layer as falling within a range of "50 to 100 Angstroms" considered prima facie obvious in view of prior art reference teaching that "for suitable protection, the thickness of the protective layer should be not less than about 10 nm [i.e., 100 Angstroms]." The court stated that "by stating that 'suitable protection' is provided if the protective layer is 'about' 100 Angstroms thick, [the prior art reference] directly teaches the use of a thickness within [applicant's] claimed range."). Similarly, a prima facie case of obviousness exists where the claimed ranges and prior art ranges do not overlap but are close enough that one skilled in the art would have expected them to have the same properties. Titanium Metals Corp. of America v. Banner, 778 F.2d 775, 227 USPQ 773 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (Court held as proper a rejection of a claim directed to an alloy of "having 0.8% nickel, 0.3% molybdenum, up to 0.1% iron, balance titanium" as obvious over a reference disclosing alloys of 0.75% nickel, 0.25% molybdenum, balance titanium and 0.94% nickel, 0.31% molybdenum, balance titanium.).
Imae discusses the thermal anisotropy of the graphite sheet as being excellent in spreading heat in the plane of the sheet (see e.g. col 7, lines 45-50) and so the skilled artisan would understand that the thermal diffusion layer has a thermal conductivity in its planar direction that is larger than the thermal conductivity in its thickness direction. Imae does not specifically recite wherein the thermal diffusion layer has a thermal conductivity in its planar direction from 10 to 200 times as large as the thermal conductivity in its thickness direction. However, in the same field of endeavor of expanded graphite sheet use to improve thermal properties of electronic type devices, Park teaches that expanded graphite sheets having high thermal anisotropy have high thermal conductivity in the plane direction and low in the thickness direction to a ratio approaching 20:1 to 50:1 (see page 8). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the instant application to design the thermal diffusion layer of Imae such that the thermal diffusion layer has a thermal conductivity in its planar direction from 10 to 200 times as large as the thermal conductivity in its thickness direction because Park teaches a range of thermal conductivity in the planar direction as being e.g. 20 to 50 times larger than thermal conductivity in the thickness direction and “[w]here the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine experimentation.” See In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456, 105 USPQ 233, 235 (CCPA 1955). The discovery of an optimum value of a known result effective variable, without producing any new or unexpected results, is within the ambit of a person of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Boesch, 205 USPQ 215 (CCPA 1980) (see MPEP § 2144.05, II.).
Imae modified by Park does not specifically recite a battery pack battery or module in which battery cells are connected in series or in parallel and stored in a housing, comprising a plurality of battery cells where a thermal runaway suppression sheet is interposed between the battery cells or is attached to the inner wall surface of the housing with which the battery cells are in contact. However, Miller discloses a battery pack or battery module in which battery cells are connected in series or in parallel and stored in a housing (paras 0078, 0116) comprising a plurality of battery cells, wherein a thermal runaway suppression sheet is interposed between the battery cells (in interstitial spaces) or on surfaces of the cell housings or on interior surfaces of the module housing (see entire disclosure and especially paras 0018-019, 0078-0079) so that thermal runaway propagation can be mitigated (para 0079). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the instant application to use the thermal runaway suppression sheet of Imae modified by Park in the battery pack of Miller such that the thermal runaway suppression sheet is interposed between the battery cells of a battery pack battery in which battery cells are connected in series or in parallel and stored in a housing because Miller teaches that thermal runaway propagation needs to be mitigated and the sheet of Imae and Park has excellent thermal resistance and thermal energy absorption and fire resistance.
Conclusion
13. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Chauhan US PG Publication 2016/0244001 discloses a thermal runaway suppression sheet comprising a thermal energy consumption layer comprising silica-based inorganic fiber having a hydroxyl group (fiber sheet including BELCOTEX fiber) (see entire disclosure and especially paras 0012-0013, , 0021-0027, 0037, 0066-0067).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LISA S PARK whose telephone number is (571)270-3597. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th 5:30a to 3p Eastern Time.
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/LISA S PARK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1729
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