DETAILED ACTION
The following Office action concerns Patent Application Number 18/995,671. Claims 6-9, 11-23, 30, 33, 34 are pending in the application. Claims 11-23, 30, 33, 34 are withdrawn from consideration as being drawn to non-elected inventions or species.
Election/Restrictions
A restriction requirement was sent to the Applicant on June 10, 2026. The Applicant was required to elect among several groups of inventions. The Applicant responded to the restriction requirement on August 6, 2026 and elected Group I, claims 6-9 and 11-15, without traverse. The applicant also elected a species of compound of monoclinic.
Accordingly, claims 11-23, 30, 33, 34 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to non-elected inventions or species.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8 is allowable over the closest prior art of Kaufman et al (US 2024/0234726) in view of Pan et al (US 2018/0248190) and Kawakami et al (US 6,165,642). The references do not teach or suggest that the phosphate material has a specific surface area of 10-30 m2/g and a pore size of 2-10 nm.
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 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.
Claims 6 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kaufman et al (US 2024/0234726) in view of Pan et al (US 2018/0248190) and Kawakami et al (US 6,165,642).
Kaufmann et al teaches cathode active material of formula MnxFe1-xPO4, wherein x is 0.01-0.95 (p. 14, claim 19). The material has the form of particles (par. 108).
Kaufman et al does not teach the size of the active material particles. or a porous structure.
However, Pan et al teaches cathode active material particles having a size of less than 50 nm (par. 30). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by design need to combine the particle size of Pan et al with the cathode active material of Kaufman et al in view of Kawakami et al in order to obtain a known suitable particle size.
Kaufman et al does not teach a porous structure.
However, Kawakami et al teaches a cathode active material having a porous structure (col. 5, lines 12-20). The porous structure provides increased area of contact with the electrolyte which produces improved battery performance and durability (col. 5, lines 21-35). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by to combine the porous structure of Kawakami et al with the cathode active material of Kaufman et al in view of Pan et al in order to obtain improved battery performance and durability.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kaufman et al in view of Pan et al, Kawakami et al and Yamaki et al (US 2004/0202933).
Kaufman et al in view of Pan et al and Kawakami et al teaches a cathode active material as described above.
Kaufman et al in view of Pan et al and Kawakami et al does not teach that the cathode active material is monoclinic.
However, Yamaki et al teaches a cathode active material having a monoclinic structure (par. 30). The monoclinic structure provides improved thermal stability (par. 30-32). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated by to combine the monoclinic structure of Yamaki et al with the cathode active material of Kaufman et al in view of Pan et al and Kawakami et al in order to obtain a battery having improved thermal stability.
Examiner’s Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to William Young whose telephone number is (571) 270-5078. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM to 5 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Angela Brown-Pettigrew, can be reached at 571-272-2817. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000./WILLIAM D YOUNG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1761 August 27, 2026
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