11592939 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 11, 2012)

Ex Parte Goebel

Board of Patent Appeals and InterferencesJul 11, 2012

11592939 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 11, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 11/592,939 11/03/2006 Steven G. Goebel GP-308881-FCAR-CHE 1888 65798 7590 07/12/2012 MILLER IP GROUP, PLC GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION 42690 WOODWARD AVENUE SUITE 200 BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI 48304 EXAMINER DAVIS, SHENG HAN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 1732 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 07/12/2012 PAPER Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS AND INTERFERENCES ____________ Ex parte STEVEN G. GOEBEL ____________ Appeal 2011-007792 Application 11/592,939 Technology Center 1700 ____________ Before BRADLEY R. GARRIS, PETER F. KRATZ, and HUBERT C. LORIN, Administrative Patent Judges. GARRIS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134 from the Examiner's rejections under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) of claims 1-10, 12-15, 17-23, 26, 28, and 29 as unpatentable over Allen (US 7,279,016 B2, issued Oct. 9, 2007) in view of Izenson (US 2007/0015035 A1, pub. Jan. 18, 2007) and of claims 10, 11, 16, 24, 25, and 27 as unpatentable over these references and further in view of Diez (US 2005/0233196 A1, pub. Oct. 20, 2005). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6. We AFFIRM. Appeal 2011-007792 Application 11/592,939 2 Appellant claims a fuel cell stack comprising fuel cells having bipolar plates and "seals provided around the active area of the fuel cells and between the active area and the headers, said seals being formed by folding an edge of at least one bipolar plate inward towards another bipolar plate" (independent claim 1). Appellant also claims providing the desired seal by particular edge-folding configurations (dependent claims 3-5). Finally, Appellant claims a bipolar plate for a fuel cell "wherein one or both of an edge of the cathode or anode side bipolar plates are folded over inward toward one another to define a seal at an edge of the fuel cell" (independent claim 20) or "wherein an edge of the bipolar plate is folded inward to define a seal at an edge of the fuel cell" (independent claim 26). Representative claims 1 and 3-5 read as follows: 1. A fuel cell stack including a plurality of stacked fuel cells, each fuel cell including an active area, said fuel cell stack comprising: a plurality of membranes where each fuel cell in the stack includes a membrane; a plurality of diffusion media layers where each fuel cell includes an anode side diffusion media layer at an anode side of the fuel cell and a cathode side diffusion media layer at a cathode side of the fuel cell; a plurality of bipolar plates positioned between the fuel cells in the stack adjacent to the diffusion media layers, said bipolar plates including anode flow channels facing the anode side diffusion media layer and cathode flow channels facing the cathode side diffusion media layer; an anode inlet header directing an anode reactant gas flow to the anode flow channels; an anode outlet header receiving the reactant gas flow from the anode flow channels; Appeal 2011-007792 Application 11/592,939 3 a cathode inlet header directing a cathode reactant gas flow to the cathode flow channels; a cathode outlet header receiving the cathode reactant gas flow from the cathode flow channels; and seals provided around the active area of the fuel cells and between the active area and the headers, said seals being formed by folding an edge of at least one bipolar plate inward towards another bipolar plate. 3. The stack according to claim 2 wherein the edges of both the anode side plate and the cathode side plate are folded inward toward one another to provide the seal. 4. The stack according to claim 2 wherein only the edge of the anode side plate is folded inward toward the cathode side plate to provide the seal. 5. The stack according to claim 2 wherein only the edge of the cathode side plate is folded inward toward the anode side plate to provide the seal. Appellant's arguments are directed to independent claims 1, 20, and 26, of which claim 1 is representative, and dependent claims 3-5 and 21-23, of which claims 3-5 are representative. The remaining claims on appeal including the separately rejected claims will stand or fall with their parent independent claims (App. Br. 11). We will sustain the above rejections for the reasons expressed in the Answer and below. The Examiner finds that Allen discloses a fuel cell stack comprising fuel cells having bipolar plates with edges folded inwardly toward another plate to create seals (Ans. 4-5). With respect to this finding, Appellant argues that "[s]imply folding an edge of a bipolar plate toward any other bipolar plate in the fuel cell stack Appeal 2011-007792 Application 11/592,939 4 does not teach or suggest forming a seal as recited in Appellant's claims" (App. Br. sentence bridging 13-14). This argument reveals no error in the Examiner's finding. As correctly explained by the Examiner, Allen expressly teaches forming seals by folding the plates (Ans. 21). Appellant does not identify with reasonable specificity any seal feature of the independent claims which is not satisfied by Allen. Appellant also argues that Allen contains no teaching or suggestion of the plate/seal configurations required by representative dependent claims 3-5 (App. Br. 16; Reply Br. 1-2). In response to the Examiner's reference to, inter alia, Figure 35 as disclosing an embodiment having the configuration of claim 3 (Ans. 23), Appellant states that Figure 35 illustrates a corner sealing area and that the seal is not formed by the folded ends shown in this Figure but rather "by applying a sealant 214 between the plates" (Reply Br. 2). We share the Examiner's view that Appellant's arguments have not been supplemented with a meaningfully specific explanation why these claims are considered to distinguish from Allen (Ans. sentence bridging 22- 23). Further, we agree with the Examiner that claim 3 is satisfied by a number of Allen's embodiments (see, e.g., Figs. 1-2 showing edges folded inward toward one another to provide seals for each of the anode and cathode plates) including the Figure 35 embodiment. Appellant's statements regarding Figure 35 fail to reveal a claim 3 distinction. Contrary to the implications of these statements, Appellant points to nothing in claim 3 which prevents the claimed seal from being in a corner area or which Appeal 2011-007792 Application 11/592,939 5 excludes a sealant from the claimed seal. Instead, claim 3 appears to clearly encompass such features as evidenced by, for example, Specification paragraph [0056] which discloses that, "[b]y folding the edges of the plates, a joint is formed at each corner of the active area 12" and that "[a] film material could be inserted into the fold to reduce the by-pass [of fluid]"). As for representative claims 4 and 5, the claimed configurations are disclosed by Allen in, for example, Figure 23 which shows only edges (i.e., rather than non-edges) of a plate folded inward toward the plate above as required by these claims. Appellant fails to provide a reasonably informative explanation of why claims 4 and 5 are considered to distinguish from Allen. For the reasons stated above and in the Answer, we sustain each of the Â§ 103 rejections advanced in this appeal. The decision of the Examiner is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. Â§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED ssl