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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is in response to Application No. 18/694,669 to Youn et al., assigned to LG Energy Solution Ltd., Seoul, Korea, filed 03/22/2024 and published as U.S. PG Publication 2024/0396178 on 11/28/2024.
This application is a National Phase entry pursuant to 35 U.S.C. §371 of International Application No. PCT/KR2023/001113, filed on 01/25/2023, and claims priority to and the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2022-0012968 filed on 01/28/ 2022.
Status of the Claims
The status of the claims stand as follows:
Currently amended 1, 7-8, 10
Original 2-6, 9
Claims 1-10 are currently pending in this application. All the pending applications are under full consideration.
Foreign Priority Benefit
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim to foreign priority benefit from Korean Patent Application No. 10-2022-0012968 filed on 01/28/ 2022. Certified copy of the priority document has been filed and are made of record.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 03/22/2024; 04/17/2025; 06/19/2025 have been placed in the application file and the information referred to therein has been considered by the examiner. Duly initialed and signed copies are attached herewith. Accordingly, information disclosure statement(s) are being considered if signed and initialed by Examiner.
Drawings
The drawings filed on 03/22/2024 are acceptable for examination purposes
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 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.
Claim 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Terashi et al. (U.S. PG Publication 2019/0326595) in view of Lee at al. (U.S. PG Publication 2015/0372275)
Regarding claim 1 Terashi discloses a lithium ion secondary battery (Terashi Title, Abstract, Fig. 5, paragraph 00050), the lithium-ion secondary battery anode according to an embodiment includes an active material layer that contains silicon (Terashi paragraph 0005, 0029), equivalent to a silicon-based negative electrode. The lithium-ion battery include a cathode (Terashi Fig. 5, paragraph 0042) equivalent to a positive electrode, and separator 10 between the cathode 4 (positive electrode) and the anode 8 (negative electrode) and an electrolyte (Terashi Fig. 5, paragraph 0042).
The anode 8 containing silicon (Tershi paragraph 0005, 0029) equivalent to the silicon-based negative electrode also includes a current collector 6 and the anode active material layer 7 disposed on one surface of the of the anode (negative electrode) (Terashi Fig. 5, paragraph 0045). The anode active material (equivalent to the negative electrode active material) include silicon particles, a binder (Terashi paragraph 0029, 0030, 0073) and a conductive material (Terashi Fig. 7, paragraph 0056-0058, 0073).
Terashi also discloses the silicon particles of the anode active material may contain monocrystalline silicon 14 disposed on the current collector (Terashi paragraph 0033), and the monocrystalline silicon may include, in the surface thereof, a covering layer containing amorphous silicon dioxide (Terashi paragraph 0034), considered equivalent to Si and SiOx, (when x is 2 , i.e. close to the upper limit of the claimed SiOx (0<x<2), the monocrystalline silicon and silicon dioxide coating layer are equivalent to the silicon-based active material of the negative electrode (anode). In a specific working example the anode coating solution contains 75 mass% of silicon powder, 10 mass% of a conductive additive, and 15 mass% of a binder (Terashi paragraph 0073), the silicon 75 mass% is included in the claimed range of amount of 70 parts by weight or more on the basis of 100 part of the silicon-based active material , i.e. including the binder and the conductive additive.
Tershi discloses the lithium ion battery includes a separator (Terashi paragraph 0042, 0045) and non-woven cloth made of organic resin fibers or inorganic fibers, a ceramic porous material, or a polyolefin such as polypropylene or polyethylene can be usable for the separator 10 (Terashi paragraph 0046). Terashi, however, is silent about the separator having the claimed compression resistance given by Equation 1 or the dielectric breakdown.
Lee discloses an electrochemical battery including a cathode, an anode, an electrolyte, and a separator interposed between the cathode and anode, the separator being polyolefin-based porous separator (Lee paragraph 0026), the battery may be a lithium secondary battery (Lee paragraph 0028).
Lee discloses the total thickness of the separator according to an embodiment from 5 µm to 25 µm (Lee paragraph 0040). Lee also discloses according to an embodiment, a film thickness change T of the polyolefin separator may be represented by the equation: T (%) = [T1-T2]/T1 x 100 (Equation 1), wherein T1 indicates thickness before heating and pressing the separator, and T2 indicates thickness after heating and pressing the separator at 90 °C and 2.2 MPa may be 15% or less (Lee paragraph 0041). This is nearly identical to the claimed range of 1% or greater and 14.5% or less. Equation 1 of Lee T (%) has the same parameters as Equation 1 of the instant application called Compression Resistance in the instant claim 1, and a “film thickness change” in Lee. It is noted that the extent of “thickness change” is also indicative of the “compression resistance”, and both equation are directed to the same feature of the two separator.
Lee teaches that in the range of the film thickness change disclosed deterioration of the cycle characteristics of the battery may be prevented, by minimizing a change in the film thickness by heat and pressure, for example, due to expansion of the separator at the time of charging electrodes (Lee paragraph 0042).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to have modified the separator in lithium-ion battery of Tershi by the separator disclosed by Lee (Lee paragraph 0041) having a separator with a minimized change in the film thickness to prevent deterioration of the cycle characteristics of the battery as taught by Lee (Lee paragraph 0043). According to the MPEP such a modification is considered the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way (MPEP 2143 I C). Lee is silent about the dielectric breakdown volage of the separator, but since the separator of Lee has similar material and compression resistance (i.e. change in thickness) it will also have the same dielectric breakdown voltage.
Regarding claim 2 Lee discloses the separator may be formed by extruding a polyolefin based sheet (Lee paragraph 0016); thus it is dry separator. Instant specification also recognized the separator formed by extruding polypropylene polymer into a film as a dry separator (Instant Specification as published paragraph 0129).
Regarding claim 3 Lee discloses the separator is a porous polymer film (Lee paragraph 0006, 0016).
Regarding claim 4 Lee discloses the separator includes a first polyolefin-based film, a second polyolefin-based film and a third polyolefin-based film (Lee paragraph 0006, 0015, 0031). Thus, the separator comprise of more than two layer as claimed.
Regarding claim 5 Lee discloses the separator have pores formed by stretching (Lee paragraph 0007, 0019, 0060, 0098), but is silent about the pore size. It is reasonable to conclude the size of the pores will depend on the stretching force and stretching time. Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill to have optimized the pore size by routine experimentation by controlling the extent of stretching which can be recognized as result effective variable. (See MPEP 2144.05 II).
Regarding claim 6 Terashi discloses in a specific working example the anode coating solution contains 75 mass% of silicon powder, 10 mass% of a conductive additive, and 15 mass% of a binder (Terashi paragraph 0073), the silicon 75 mass% is included in the claimed range of amount of 60 parts by weight or more on the basis of 100 part of the silicon-based active material layer composition, i.e. including the binder and the conductive additive.
Regarding claim 7 Terashi discloses the active materials of the anode 8 include conductive pillars 20 (Terashi Fig. 7, paragraph 0056, 0057, 0058), the conductive pillars considered equivalent to the linear conductive material.
Regarding claim 8 the anode active material layer have needle-shaped bodies containing silicon (Terashi Fig. 3, 6, paragraph 0005, 0026), the needle-shaped bodies 13 impart a roughness on the surface of the active material to be bonded to the separator (Tershi Fig. 3, 4, 6A-E). Terashi is silent about the measure of roughness of the surface. However, for an optimum bonding of the active material to the separator it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill to have optimized by routine experimentation the roughness of the anode electrode active material. (See MPEP 2144.05 II).
Regarding claim 9 Terashi discloses the thickness of the anode active material active material 17 is 10 µm to 30 µm (Terashi Fig. 2, paragraph 0031). This range is included in the claimed range of 10 µm or greater and 100 µm or less.
Regarding claim 10 Terashi discloses the cathode active material, i.e. the positive electrode active material, may be selected from lithium-nickel-cobalt composite oxide, lithium-manganese composite oxide, disclosed among others (Terashi paragraph 0044). The disclosed composite oxide includes at least two of the claimed composite oxides.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to OMAR M KEKIA whose telephone number is (571)270-5918. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00am-5:00 pm,.
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/JONATHAN G JELSMA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1722
/OMAR M KEKIA/Examiner, Art Unit 1722
