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 § 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) 1-6, and 8-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by CN 110808363.
Regarding claim 1 and 4, CN ‘363 teaches a process of making a lithium and transition metal composition (Claim 1). The composition is made by preparing an aqueous solution of at least a base (Claim 3), which is mixed with a lithium salt (such as lithium chloride (Summary of Invention), a transition metal salt (such as manganese sulfate (Summary of Invention)), and an ammonium ion donor, (such as ammonium sulfate (Summary of Invention)) to form a precipitate (Summary of Invention).
Regarding claim 2, the ammonium sulfate concentration may be 1 mol/L and the reaction time may be 5 hours (Example 3).
Regarding claim 3, the ammonium ion donor may be ammonium sulfate (Examples).
Regarding claim 5, the reaction mixture may include NaOH (Examples).
Regarding claim 6, the transition metal salt or the lithium salt may be carbonate, which would inherently create a CO2 atmosphere during precipitation (Summary of Invention).
Regarding claim 8-9, the composition may be sintered at 600 deg. C (Claim 8) and form a positive electrode material (Summary of Invention).
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) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CN 110808363 as applied to claim 7 above, and further in view of CN 109786721.
Regarding claim 7, CN ‘363 teaches that the reagents are mixed for precipitation step.
CN ‘363 does not expressly state that the crystallization step occurs with ultrasonic waves.
CN ‘721 teaches a process of making a lithium and transition metal composition for lithium batteries via a precipitation method. The process performs a mixing step using ultrasonic waves.
At the time of invention, it would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art to perform the mixing step of CN ‘363 using ultrasonic waves in view of CN ‘721. The suggestion or motivation for doing so would have been to provide a means for mixing with predictable results in the process of CN ‘363, which was required but not disclosed.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAMES A FIORITO whose telephone number is (571)272-9921. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM.
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/JAMES A FIORITO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1731
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