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 Objections
Claim 6 objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate of Claim 5 because the second compound is previously defined in Claim 1, from which both Claims 5 and 6 depend, to be at least one of the compound represented by Formula (2) and the compound represented by Formula (3). When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 608.01(m).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 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.
Claims 1-6 and 8-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mun et al. (US 2013/0071745 A1).
Regarding Claim 1, Mun teaches an electrode active material and a battery including the same, wherein the electrode active material includes a core capable of intercalating and deintercalating lithium and a composite metal halide including a coating layer formed on at least a portion of the core, wherein the coating layer contains an alkali metal and a metal with an oxidation number of 2 or higher (Paragraphs [0024] and [0025]) and the teaching pertains to a cathode and/or an anode (Paragraph [0060]).
Mun teaches the active material core may include an anode active material such as a transition metal oxide (Paragraph [0048]) and may include compounds expressed by Formula 8: LixMeyMzPO4-αXα (Paragraph [0043]) where 0.90≤x≤1.1, 0≤y≤0.9, 0≤z≤0.5, 1-y-z>0, 0≤α≤2, Me is one or more metals selected from the group consisting of Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Al, Mg, Zr, and B, M is at least one element selected from the group consisting of Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, Ti, Zr, Nb, Mo, W, Zn, Al, Si, Ni, Mn, Cr, Fe, Mg, Sr, V, and rare-earth elements, and X is an element selected from the group consisting of O, F, S, and P (Paragraph [0044]) which satisfies Formula (1) of the instant claim.
Mun teaches the composite metal halide precursor for preparing an electrode active material may include a salt including an alkali metal such as a fluoride salt (Paragraph [0070]), or the electrolyte which may be formed on the anode (Paragraph [0064]) may include a lithium salt such as LiCl (Paragraph [0066]) which both satisfy Formula (2) of the instant claim.
Mun teaches the electrode active material also includes a composite metal halide such as Li2ZrF6 (Paragraph [0029]) which satisfies Formula (3) of the instant claim.
Regarding Claim 2, Mun teaches an anode active material composition is manufactured by mixing an anode active material having a coating layer including a composite metal halide containing an alkali metal and a metal with an oxidation number of 2 or higher formed on at least a portion of a surface thereof, a conducting agent, a binder, and a solvent (Paragraph [0057]) and the active material core may include an anode active material such as a transition metal oxide (Paragraph [0048]).
The transition metal oxide core material of Mun is analogous to Formula (1) of the first compound of the instant claims and the composite metal halide of Mun is analogous to Formula (3) of the second compound of the instant claims, as in Claim 1 above. Mun teaches coating at least a portion or all of the core surface with the composite metal halide (Paragraph [0025]), thereby presenting the second compound between the first compound and the remaining negative electrode active material.
Regarding Claim 3, Mun teaches the composite metal halide precursor for preparing an electrode active material may include a salt including alkali metal such as a fluoride salt (Paragraph [0070]) as in Claim 1 above.
Regarding Claim 4, Mun teaches the electrode active material also includes a composite metal halide such as Li2ZrF6 (Paragraph [0029]) as in Claim 1 above.
Regarding Claims 5 and 6, Mun teaches the composite metal halide content may be about 10 wt% or less (Paragraph [0030]), wherein the composite metal halide of Mun is analogous to Formula (3) of the second compound of the instant claims. Since the second compound mass% can be 0%, the mass% of the first compound may necessarily be larger.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Mun to optimize the mass% of the composite metal halide to arrive at the claimed configuration since it has been held that, where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine experimentation. See re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456, 105 USPQ 233, 235 (CCPA 1955). In the present invention, one would have been motivated to optimize the mass% of the composite metal halide by the desire to control the functions of the positive metal halide aside from its limited involvement in a battery capacity, such as suppressing side reactions between the core and an electrolyte, preventing transition metal erupting from the core, and reducing surface resistance of the electrode active material to create a stable coating layer with the stronger metal-halogen bonding of the composite metal halide as taught by Mun (Paragraphs [0026] and [0027]).
Regarding Claim 8, Mun teaches coating at least a portion or all of the core surface with the composite metal halide (Paragraph [0025]), wherein the composite metal halide of Mun is analogous to Formula (3) of the second compound of the instant claims.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to pick any part of the claimed range of the instant application, since a prima facie case of obviousness exists in the case where the claimed ranges “overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art”. See re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976).
Regarding Claim 9, Mun teaches a cell using a cathode plate, an anode plate, and an electrolyte (Paragraph [0104]) and the electrolyte may be a solid electrolyte (Paragraph [0064]).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mun et al. (US 2013/0071745 A1) as in Claims 1-6 and 8-9 above, further evidenced by Tanaka et al. ("Improvement of the anode performance of graphite particles through surface modification in RF thermal plasma", 01 June 2004, Thin Solid Films: Volume 457 Issue 1, Pages 209-216).
Regarding Claim 7, Mun teaches an average particle diameter of the active material core may be about 1 µm to about 30 µm (Paragraph [0037]) with a coating layer thickness of about 1 Å to about 1 µm (Paragraph [0036]), wherein a portion or all of the core surface is coated with the composite metal halide (Paragraph [0025]) and the composite metal halide of Mun is analogous to Formula (3) of the second compound of the instant claims. Mun does not teach the average particle size of the composite metal halide.
Mun teaches a manufacturing example where a graphite powder “Osaka gas, MCMB” is used as an anode active material (Paragraph [0103]). Mun does not disclose the diameter of the Osaka Gas graphite particles. Tanaka teaches MCMB 10-28 powder from Osaka Gas Co. to have an average particle size of 11 µm (Section 2. Experiments, ¶1).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Tanaka and Mun to optimize the average particle diameter of the composite metal halide to be smaller than the average particle size of the Osaka Gas MCMB particles to arrive at the claimed configuration since it has been held that, where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine experimentation. See re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456, 105 USPQ 233, 235 (CCPA 1955). Since the average particle size of the entire coated particle with composite metal halide as a coating layer may be optimized within the range as taught by Mun to be smaller than the average particle size of the Osaka Gas MCMB particles evidenced by Tanaka, the average particle size of the composite metal halide itself would necessarily be smaller than the average particle size of the Osaka Gas MCMB particles. In the present invention, one would have been motivated to optimize the coating thickness on the particle and thus the composite metal halide particle size by the desire to provide a lithium battery of an enhanced performance when using the ranges of thicknesses of the coating layer as taught by Mun (Paragraph [0036]).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mun et al. (US 2013/0071745 A1) as in Claims 1-6 and 8-9 above, further in view of Yoshida et al. (US 2007/0202414 A1).
Regarding Claim 10, Mun teaches the active material core may include an anode active material such as a transition metal oxide (Paragraph [0048]) and may include compounds expressed by Formula 8: LixMeyMzPO4-αXα (Paragraph [0043]) where 0.90≤x≤1.1, 0≤y≤0.9, 0≤z≤0.5, 1-y-z>0, 0≤α≤2, Me is one or more metals selected from the group consisting of Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Al, Mg, Zr, and B, M is at least one element selected from the group consisting of Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, Ti, Zr, Nb, Mo, W, Zn, Al, Si, Ni, Mn, Cr, Fe, Mg, Sr, V, and rare-earth elements, and X is an element selected from the group consisting of O, F, S, and P (Paragraph [0044]) which satisfies Formula (1) of the instant claim, as in Claim 1 above. Mun does not teach the solid electrolyte as being the same as the first compound.
Yoshida teaches [1] an all-solid-state battery having: a cathode comprising a cathode active material, an anode comprising an anode active material, and a solid electrolyte layer comprising a solid electrolyte, the cathode active material, the anode active material, and the solid electrolyte being compounds respectively shown by the following formulas (1), (2), and (3),MaN1 bX1 c (1)MdN2 eX2 f (2)MgN3 hX3 i (3)wherein M is H, Li, Na, Mg, Al, K, or Ca; each of X1, X2, and X3 is a polyanion; a, d, and g are numbers of 0 to 5; b, e, and h are numbers of 1 to 2; c, f, and i are numbers of 1 to 3; N1 in the formula (1) is at least one atom selected from the group consisting of transition metals, Al, and Cu; N2 in the formula (2) is at least one atom selected from the group consisting of transition metals, Al, and Cu; and N3 in the formula (3) is at least one atom selected from the group consisting of Ti, Ge, Hf, Zr, Al, Cr, Ga, Fe, Sc, and In (Paragraph [0013]); [2] the all-solid-state battery described in [1], wherein the polyanion is at least one selected from the group consisting of SiO4, PO4, SO4, MoO4, WO4, BO4, and BO3 (Paragraph [0014]); [3] the all-solid-state battery described in [1] or [2], wherein X1 and X2 in the formulas (1) and (2) contain at least one identical polyanion selected from the above-mentioned polyanions and X2 and X3 in the formulas (2) and (3) contain at least one identical polyanion selected from the above-mentioned polyanions (Paragraph [0015]); [4] the all-solid-state battery described in [1] to [3] above, wherein X1, X2, and X3 in the formulas (1) to (3) are the same in all of the cathode active material, anode active material, and solid electrolyte (Paragraph [0016]); and [5] the all-solid-state battery described in [1] to [4] above, wherein M in the formulas (1) to (3) are the same in all of the cathode active material, anode active material, and solid electrolyte (Paragraph [0017]); wherein the anode active material and solid electrolyte material may be configured to the same compound satisfying the formulas (2) and (3) above.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the use of an identical solid electrolyte and anode active material of Yoshida with the active material of Mun satisfying Formula (1) of the first compound of the instant claims in order to arrive at the claimed invention and gain the benefits of the adaptation, such as improving ion conductivity, delivery of a large current, and charge-and-discharge cycle characteristics by using the same cathode, anode, and solid electrolyte materials as taught by Yoshida (Paragraph [0011]). See Sundance, Inc. v. DeMonte Fabricating Ltd., 550 F.3d 1356, 89 USPQ2d 1535 (Fed. Cir. 2008) in MPEP §2143 for KSR obviousness rationale (A).
Correspondence
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Vivian Cheng whose telephone number is (571)270-1930. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thu 7:30am-5pm ET, Fri 7:30am-12pm ET.
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/V.S.C./Examiner, Art Unit 1781
/FRANK J VINEIS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1781
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