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 .
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 1/15/2025, 4/23/2025, 11/20/2025 and 8/3/2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Drawings
Figure 1 should be designated by a legend such as --Prior Art-- because only that which is old is illustrated. See MPEP § 608.02(g). Corrected drawings in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. The replacement sheet(s) should be labeled “Replacement Sheet” in the page header (as per 37 CFR 1.84(c)) so as not to obstruct any portion of the drawing figures. If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore:
i) the MxN detector array;
ii) a detection period having the MxN array of data (preferably in a manner analogous to Fig.1); and
iii) the LxW overlap upon which the claimed calibrations are based (par.00108, preferably in a manner analogous to Fig.1);
must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered. Also see the Figures of US patent documents to Urano and to Takeda for clear illustrated examples of their data acquisition with respect to the electrode sheet.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-5, 13, 14 and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Urano (US 20140328459 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 19 and 20, Urano discloses an electrode plate testing method (Figs.1, 2, 7 and 8), including:
a) acquiring a signal transmitted by an electrode plate W under irradiation by a ray, where the ray is arranged in a width direction Y of the electrode plate W and covers the electrode plate W, and scans the electrode plate W along a length direction X of the electrode plate W; and
b) detecting a surface density of a material applied on a surface of the electrode plate W based on the signal transmitted by the electrode plate W (par.0035: “Here, the term “defect” refers to a primary factor that may cause the reliability of a finished lithium ion accumulator product to diminish…and includes e.g….or coating defect in positive electrode material, negative electrode material, or a separator thereof.” Par.0036: “In the case where…there are positive electrode material coating leaks and vacancies, the same appear as defect signals that are brighter than the background in the x-ray transmission image.”).
With respect to claim 2, Urano further discloses that the detecting step (b) includes detecting surface densities corresponding to M width positions in the width direction Y of the electrode plate W, where M is a positive integer greater than 1 (equal to the number of pixels in the Y direction, Figs.7 and 8).
With respect to claim 3, Urano further discloses that, in the length direction X, each of the M width positions corresponds to N length positions, where N is a positive integer greater than 1 (number of pixels in the X direction, Figs.7 and 8), where the detecting step (b) includes:
c) obtaining MxN pieces of detected data corresponding to the M width positions and the N length positions; and
d) determining the surface densities corresponding to the M width positions based on the MxN pieces of detected data (due to the TDI image acquisition in the direction of electrode motion, every M width position is the sum of the intensities of all N length positions in the Mth width position, Figs.7 and 8).
With respect to claim 4, Urano further discloses that the electrode plate W moves along the length direction X, and the obtaining step (c) above includes obtaining the MxN pieces of detected data corresponding to a part of the electrode plate W irradiated by the ray in the detection period (since the detection period is not specified, then the fact that Urano collects the data at all during movement of the electrode plate anticipates; additionally, every readout of the last detector row is a capture of MxN pieces of detected data due to the TDI process, which happens over a finite period of time synchronized to the movement of the electrode plate during which the electrode plate moves one pixel in the length direction).
With respect to claim 5, Urano further discloses that the determining step (d) above includes determining a surface density corresponding to the i-th width position based on N pieces of detected data corresponding to the i-th width position in the M width positions, where i ranges from 1 to M (due to the TDI image acquisition in the direction of electrode motion, every M width position is the sum of the intensities of all N length positions in the i-th width position, where i ranges from 1 to M, Figs.7 and 8).
With respect to claim 13, Urano further discloses determining whether the surface density corresponding to the i-th width position is abnormal based on surface densities corresponding to the i-th width position detected in a current detection period and an adjacent detection period thereof (since the detection period is not specified, then Urano anticipates at least because a deviation from background is a comparison of previous and subsequent measurements, see at least Fig.3, as well as par.0036: “In the case where…there are positive electrode material coating leaks and vacancies, the same appear as defect signals that are brighter than the background in the x-ray transmission image.” – where the background is the baseline/expected surface density).
With respect to claim 14, Urano further discloses determining whether the surface density corresponding to the i-th width position is abnormal based on surface densities corresponding to the i-th width position detected in a current detection period and an adjacent detection period thereof includes: if a difference between the surface densities corresponding to the i-th width position detected in the current detection period and the adjacent detection period thereof is greater than or equal to a product of the surface density corresponding to the i-th width position in the adjacent detection period and a predetermined value, determining that the surface density corresponding to the i-th width position is abnormal, where the predetermined value is between 0 and 1 (applying a threshold relative to background, par.0036).
With respect to claim 17, Urano anticipates the claim because this is an inherent property of x-ray attenuation through a medium, discovered by others generations ago.
With respect to claim 18, Urano further discloses that the ray is x-rays.
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 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.
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Urano, as applied to claim 5, in view of Xu (CN 1095450642 A, pagination according to provided translation).
With respect to claim 16, Urano does not specifically disclose controlling a coating process.
Xu teaches the practice of providing real-time feedback control of a coating process (Figs.1 and 2) by adjusting an amount of the material applied on an electrode plate 50 in M coating directions based on the measured variations in surface density (coating thickness) corresponding to the M width positions, where the M coating directions correspond to the M width positions respectively , and the coating directions are parallel to the length direction (Figs.3-5).
Xu does not disclose the specific means 61 of determining the surface density as a function of M coating directions.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention for Urano to apply the determined surface densities as a function of M in order for optimize the precision by which Xu monitors the surface density (thickness) for superior electrode plate yield, as taught by Xu.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Urano, as applied to claim 14 above, in view of Xiong (CN 112082901 B, pagination corresponding to provided translation).
With respect to claim 15, Urano does not specifically disclose the percent deviation.
Xiong teaches the practice of establishing a surface density measurement deviation of less than 10% as an appropriate amount for surface density tolerances (bottom of p.10 to middle of p.11).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention for Urano to have the predetermined value between 1% and 10% in order to ensure sufficient uniformity of the surface density, as suggested by Xiong.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-12 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
With respect to claim 6, the prior art neither teaches nor reasonably suggests the additional limitation of determining the surface density corresponding to the i-th width position based on an average value of the N pieces of detected data corresponding to the i-th width position, as required by the combination of features as claimed in claims 1-6.
The prior art of record that specifically teaches measuring MxN data across the width of the electrode plate and along the length direction, including Urano, teach TDI imaging for faster imaging without image degradation. As a result, the surface density for the i-th width position is always a sum of the N pieces of detected data for that i-th width position. The notable exception is Takeda (exemplified by US 2021/0148837 A1) where the N pieces of data are averaged for each i-th width position (Figs.1-4D); however, the averaging is for background correction rather than for determining surface density.
With respect to claim 7, the prior art neither teaches nor reasonably suggests the additional limitation of calibrating the surface density corresponding to the i-th width position based on the surface density corresponding to the i-th width position and surface densities corresponding to the (i-1)th width position and/or the (i+1) width position, as required by the combination of features as claimed in claims 1-5 and 7. At best, Takeda (cited above) teaches averaging i-th width positions with the (i-1)th and (i+1)th positions to form M pixel blocks for background correction in order to smooth out subtle variations, such as in thickness and surface density, so that isolated defects, such as foreign objects, are more obvious (Figs.1-3C and 6A-8B).
Claims 8 and 9 are objected to by virtue of their dependence upon claim 7, thus incorporating the combination of allowable features.
With respect to claim 10, the prior art neither teaches nor reasonably suggests the additional limitation of calibrating the surface density corresponding to the i-th width position detected in the j-th detection period, based on the surface density corresponding to the i-th width position detected in the j-th detection period and a surface density corresponding to the i-th width position detected in the (j-1)th detection period and/or the (j+1)th detection period.
US patent documents to Morgan and to Featonby each teach the practice of calibrating a continuous scan with previous scan intervals in situations where the exact specifications of the scanned object are unknown (such as pipelines), and the object is assumed to be defect-free when there are no meaningful changes in the profile from one scan interval to the next along the length direction (see at least par.0035 and Figs.18A-19B of Featonby).
By contrast, the thicknesses and surface densities of electrode plate coatings are predetermined within very tight tolerances using high-purity materials. Such a calibration would not be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art absent the benefit of Applicant’s disclosure.
Claims 11 and 12 are objected to by virtue of their dependence upon claim 10, thus incorporating the combination of allowable features.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure (see attached PTO-892 unless otherwise specified):
The other Chinese patent document to Xiong teaches real-time x-ray surface density monitoring 102 of a multi-layer electrode plate for real-time feedback to the material feeding apparatus 104; and
The remaining cited art are US family members of previously-cited prior art.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THOMAS R ARTMAN whose telephone number is (571)272-2485. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 10am-6:30pm.
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THOMAS R. ARTMAN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2884
/THOMAS R ARTMAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2884
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