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) 1-3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0226849 to Visco et al. (“Visco”). It is first noted that claim 1 merely requires a material that is sublimable, but does not limit the degree to which the material must be sublimable, nor the conditions under which sublimation may happen for the material. The vast majority of materials will sublime to some degree under certain conditions. In particular, Visco discloses methods of making all-solid battery systems involving sputter depositing phosphorous nitride from a solid phosphorous nitride target onto the surfaces of a sulfide-glass electrolyte layer material to provide protection against moisture and air. That the phosphorous nitride is capable of efficient sputtering from a solid target of the phosphours nitride establishes that the material is, under certain conditions, sublimable to a certain degree. Visco at paragraphs [0007] and [0008]; See also Applicant’s prior art U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0255124
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-10 are 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.
Regarding claim 4, the prior art is silent regarding coating a layer of starting material for a separator of a solid-state battery with a sublimable material comprising camphor.
Regarding claim 5-10, although the prior art discloses providing removable protective coating layers onto various components of a solid state battery during its manufacture, followed by removal of those coating layers in subsequent manufacturing steps (see the liquid coating layers of Visco), the prior art is silent regarding a step of removing a coating material by sublimation under the recited conditions.
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/WYATT P MCCONNELL/ Examiner, Art Unit 1727
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