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.
1. Claims 1-3 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kano et al. (JP2003297375).
2. Regarding claims 1-3 and 11, Kano teaches an electrolytic solution for a zinc battery (an alkaline zinc secondary battery, abstract); comprising an alkali metal hydroxide and a surfactant, wherein a content of the surfactant is 0.01% by mass or more with respect to a total mass of the electrolytic solution for a zinc battery (A 10 wt% potassium hydroxide aqueous solution was used as an alkaline electrolyte, and n-dodecyltrimethylammonium chloride as a cationic organic substance was added to 0.1%, page 8 [Sample 10]; According to instant specification: Examples of the cationic surfactant include…a monoalkyltrimethylammonium salt (US20240356081) [0034]…Specific examples of the monoalkyltrimethylammonium salt include…dodecyltrimethylammonium chloride [0038]).
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 of this title, 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.
3. Claims 4-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kano et al. (JP2003297375) as applied to claim 1 in view of Amos et al. (US 20210175580, PCT filed 4/16/2019).
4. Regarding claims 4-10, the complete discussion of Kano as applied to claim 1 is incorporated herein. However, they are silent about the limitations of claims 4-10.
5. The liquid electrolyte can, for example, comprise a KOH electrolyte [0134], and the liquid electrolyte comprises a solvent…for example, comprise monoglyme, diglyme, tetraglyme [0135] for the benefit of electrochemical devices described herein can exhibit improved power density [0154].
6. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kano with Amos for the benefit of electrochemical devices described herein can exhibit improved power density.
Conclusion
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/OLATUNJI A GODO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1752