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 § 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) 11, 14-16, and 18-21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sung et al (WO 2014/077536) in view of Pszolla et al (US 2020/0280092). For Sung, the examiner is relying on the Espacenet translation attached herein. The paragraph numbering in the translation was added by the examiner to the translation for ease of referencing and does not correspond to the paragraph numbering of the original document.
With respect to claim 11, Sung discloses a battery bank with a housing (battery pack 50) having one or batteries within the housing (fig. 2). Sung further discloses a safety apparatus comprising a metering device 30 that comprises an additive for neutralizing the electrolyte that may leak out of the battery. The device of Sung is configured to release the additive inside the bank housing. See fig. 2 and par. 34-38.
Sung does not explicitly disclose that the battery contains a sulfur dioxide based electrolyte. Pszolla teaches an alternative battery that utilizes sulfur dioxide as an electrolyte (abstract) and discloses that these batteries have a number of benefits for high-energy applications like automobiles including reduced weight and fast recharging (par. 0012-0020 and 0072-0075). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing to utilize the battery cells of Pszolla for the battery bank of Sung because the utility of one known secondary battery configuration for another, especially when those batteries have many favorable properties, requires only routine skill in the art.
With respect to claim 14, the metering device of Sung includes a storage vessel 31 containing the additive and a pump 34 where the pump is connected via a valve 35 to the distribution element 33 positioned inside the bank housing (fig. 2 and par. 33-35).
With respect to claim 15, Sung further discloses a monitoring device that includes a battery control system 40 and a sensor unit (13 and/or 20) connected to the control system. See fig. 1 and par. 26-33.
With respect to claim 16, Sung discloses a temperature sensor 20 (par. 33). Sung also discloses a gas sensor 13 that senses gas generated by the electrolyte, which is presumably either a pressure sensor or a chemical sensor of unspecified origin.
With respect to claim 18 and 19, the gas sensor detects emergence of electrolyte from the sensor unit and utilizes that as a triggering or non-triggering scenario (par. 32 and 53). Although Sung does not appear to be explicit in S20 that the electrolyte leakage determination comes from the sensor unit’s (13) detecting of electrolyte leakage, one of ordinary skill in the art would clearly be motivated to tie the sensor response directly or indirectly to the triggering and non-triggering scenarios.
With respect to claim 20, the triggering scenario (i.e. step S20 is ‘Y’) actuates the metering device (via step S30 and the additive is released by the distributing element inside the housing. See fig. 2 and 3 and par. 38 and 53.
With respect to claim 21, Sung in view of Pszolla already rendered obvious the battery bank of claim 20. Moreover as already discussed above, Sung discloses detecting via a sensor unit the emergence of electrolyte from one or more cells (discussion of claim 18 above), evaluating via the battery control system the detection in terms of a triggering or non-triggering scenario (discussion of claims 18 and 19), and upon identification of a triggering scenario (i.e. step S20 is ‘Y’) actuating the metering apparatus (see discussion of claim 20).
Claim(s) 12 and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sung in view of Pszolla as applied to claim 11 above, and further in view of Anderson et al (USP 4,303,745).
With respect to the claims, Sung and Pszolla set forth all the limitations of the claims but did not specify the additive was a base in an aqueous solution. Anderson teaches an alternate sulfur dioxide based battery (analogous to Pszolla) and teaches that these batteries give off sulfur dioxide which is acidic. Anderson then teaches that a suitable neutralizing agent for materials such as SO2 outgassing includes bases materials like sodium carbonate or bicarbonate, or hydroxides. See col. 3, ll. 12-38 and col. 4, ll. 4-15.
Because Sung is configured to neutralize the electrolyte of the battery chosen and Anderson taught suitable neutralizing agents for sulfur dioxide based electrolytes, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing to utilize the additive agents of Anderson for the battery bank of Sung and Pszolla in order to appropriately neutralize the battery materials of Pszolla. With respect to use of an aqueous solution of any of sodium carbonate or alkali hydroxides, the metering device of Sung relies on fluid delivery (i.e. spraying) and water is an obvious choice of fluid to dissolve the additives of Anderson.
Claim(s) 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sung in view of Pszolla as applied to claim 15 above, and further in view of Anderson and Stangelmayer et al (Fresenius J. Anal. Chem. (1998), 362, pp. 73-76).
With respect to the claim, Sung and Pszolla set forth all the limitations of claim 15 and Sung further suggested the gas detector 13 should measure gas generated by the electrolyte (par. 32), but the reference did not explicitly recite a spectroscopic gas sensor for sulfur dioxide.
However, the previously relied on Anderson already taught that the principle gas given off by sulfur dioxide based electrolytes is sulfur dioxide (see discussion above) and Stangelmayer further teaches that spectroscopic measurement of sulfur dioxide is already known in the art. See “Introduction” and p. 73 and “Instrumentation for optical measurements” on p. 74. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing to utilize the teachings of Anderson and Stangelmayer for the battery bank of Sung and Pszolla so that the gas detector utilized for Pszolla’s battery configuration is appropriately measuring the correct leakage gas.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Wahl et al (US 2010/0190042) discloses an alternate additive metering device for a battery bank.
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/KAJ K OLSEN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1714
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