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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 04 July 2024, 27 January 2025, and 04 August 2025 have been considered by the examiner.
Claim Interpretation
The limitation, “80% or more of the voids are present at an inner side more than the outer shell part” of the instant claim 1 is interpreted to mean that 80% or more of the total void volume is present at an inner side, rather than 80% or more of a total number of voids.
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 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP2021120937A (Nagata) with reference to the Nagata English translation provided in the Official Correspondence, in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2019/0252680 (Ando).
Considering claim 1, Nagata teaches a lithium-ion secondary battery that includes a positive electrode and a non-aqueous electrolyte, with a positive electrode composite paste that contains positive electrode active material applied to a current collector of the positive electrode [0016, 0062]. The positive electrode active material comprises a first positive electrode active material particle A and a second positive electrode active material particle B [0012]. The first particle A has a solid structure, which means that it has a porosity of preferably 10% or less and the porosity of the second particles B is preferably 20% or more, which corresponds to the second particle B having a hollow structure [0012, 0035, 0049, Fig 2]. The porosity of each particle can be measured by observing a cross-section using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) [0036]. Additionally, the second particle B has an average particle size of 1 µm or more and 8 µm or less, the upper limit of which satisfies the limitation of at least 8 µm set forth by the instant claim [0014]. The ratio of mass of the first particle A and the second particle B satisfies the equation: 0.001 ≤ WB/(WA + WB) ≤ 0.5, where WA is the mass of the first particle A and WB is the mass of the second particle B [0014]. An overlap exists between the equation mentioned above and the equation of the instant claim. For example, if the masses of the first particle A and the second particle B were equal to each other, both equations would be satisfied. However, Nagata is silent to teach the first particle A having an average particle diameter of 1 µm - 7 µm and at least 80% of the voids in the second particle B being present at an inner side more than the outer shell.
In the same field of endeavor of power storage, Ando teaches a positive electrode active material for a secondary battery [ABS]. When discussing background art, Ando cites JP2011116580 and explains that the average particle diameter for a positive electrode active material for a nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery is recommended to be 2-8 µm [0005]. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the first electrode active material particle A of Nagata to have an average particle diameter of 2-8 µm as taught by Ando, in order for the active material to have a high capacity and long durability due to the material undergoing electrochemical reactions uniformly [0005]. Ando teaches the electrode active material to have a void ratio of 5-50% in a first area R1 that is from a central part of the secondary particle to one half of the radius of the secondary particle and up to 1.5% in a second area R2 that is outside the first area [0013, Fig 1B]. R1 and R2 are considered to be analogous to the inner side and outer shell respectively of the instant claim. Using the formula for volume of a sphere, R2 is found to be 7 times the volume of R1, so the void ratios would need to satisfy the equation: V1/(V1 + 7V2) ≥ 0.8 in order to meet the limitation of 80% of the voids being present at an inner side, where V1 is the void ratio of R1 and V2 is the void ratio of R2. An example where V1 is 50% and V2 is 1.5% would have the above equation result in 0.83 and would thus satisfy the limitation of the instant claim. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the second positive electrode active material particle B of Nagata to have the specified void ratios at inner and outer sides as taught by Ando, in order to increase a retention rate of the battery capacity upon repeat charging and discharging operations without decreasing the charging and discharging capacities [0027].
Considering claim 6, Nagata teaches that the first positive electrode active material particle A and the second positive electrode active material particle B contain Li, Ni, Co, Mn, and at least one element M selected from W, Zr, V, Mg, Mo, Nb, Ti, Si, and Al in a ratio of Li:Ni:Co:Mn:M = s:(1-x-y-z):x:y:z (where 0.05 ≤ x ≤ 0.50, 0 ≤ y ≤ 0.35, 0 ≤ z ≤ 0.05, and 0.95 < s < 1.20) [0027, 0046]. These compounds are the same as those in the instant claim and the ratio values overlap with the corresponding ratio values of the instant claim.
Considering claim 7, Nagata teaches a lithium-ion secondary battery that contains a non-aqueous electrolyte and the positive electrode [0016].
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP2021120937A (Nagata) with reference to the Nagata English translation provided in the Official Correspondance, in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2019/0252680 (Ando) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of CN105304892A (Sakai) with reference to the Sakai English translation provided in the Official Correspondance.
Considering claim 2, Nagata is silent to explicitly teach a BET specific surface area of the first positive electrode active material particle A being between 1.5 to 2.3 m2/g. In the same field of endeavor of power storage, Sakai teaches a lithium-ion secondary battery having a positive electrode that contains a positive electrode active material [0002]. The specific surface area of the active substance is preferably 0.5-5 m2/g and is determined by the BET method [0036, 0066]. This range encompasses the range set forth by the instant claim. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the first positive electrode active material particle A of Nagata to have a specific surface area within the range taught by Sakai, in order to significantly improve both the discharge capacity and cycle characteristics of the lithium-ion secondary battery.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP2021120937A (Nagata) with reference to the Nagata English translation provided in the Official Correspondance, in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2019/0252680 (Ando) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2023/0197950 (Higuchi).
Considering claim 3, Nagata is silent to explicitly teach the ratio of mass of the first particle A and the second particle B to satisfy the equation: 0 < WA/(WA + WB) < 0.2, where WA is the mass of the first particle A and WB is the mass of the second particle B. In the same field of endeavor of power storage, Higuchi teaches a positive electrode active material containing a first and second particles where the second particles have a larger average size than the first particles [ABS]. The mass ratio of the first and second lithium composite oxide particles may be as low as 10:90 [0056]. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the mass ratio of the first particle A and second particle B of Nagata to be 10:90 as taught by Higuchi, in order to contribute to increased volume capacity density and to provide a non-aqueous electrolyte secondary battery with high cycle characteristics [0058].
Claims 4 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP2021120937A (Nagata) with reference to the Nagata English translation provided in the Official Correspondance, in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2019/0252680 (Ando) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2019/0248673 (Kaneda).
Considering claim 4, Nagata is silent to explicitly teach 90% or more of primary particles being present at the outer shell part of the second positive electrode active material particles B. In the same field of endeavor of power storage, Kaneda teaches a nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery that contains a positive electrode active material which is a secondary particle made up of flocculated primary particles [ABS]. This particle structure is considered to be analogous to the second positive electrode active material particle of the instant claim. Kaneda teaches that it is preferable that at least 70% of the primary particles 12 be radially disposed in the region R2, which is 50% of the radius from the outer circumference of the secondary particle 13 to the central part C [0083, Fig 3B]. R2 is considered to be the equivalent of the outer shell part of the instant claim and the “at least 70%” specified by Kaneda encompasses the 90% or more limitation set forth by the instant claim. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the structure of the second particle B of Nagata to have at least 70% of primary particles in the outer region as taught by Kaneda, in order to enhance the radial orientation of the particle structure, which enhances battery characteristics [0083].
Considering claim 5, Kaneda teaches that at least 70% of all primary particles are radially disposed in the outer region as mentioned above [0083]. Furthermore, radially disposed means that the angle difference theta between the direction of the long diameter L of the primary particle 12 and the radial direction R1 is preferably within up to 30 degrees [0084, Fig 3B]. Since at least 70% of all primary particles are radially disposed in the outer region, 40% or more of the primary particles in the outer region would inherently have an angle of no more than 30 degrees according to the teachings of Kaneda.
Conclusion
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/E.H.C./Examiner, Art Unit 1784
/HUMERA N. SHEIKH/
Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1784
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