12119647 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 26, 2012)

Ex Parte Xie

Board of Patent Appeals and InterferencesJul 26, 2012

12119647 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 26, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE 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. 12/119,647 05/13/2008 Tao Xie P001577-R &D-JMC 3427 104102 7590 07/26/2012 BrooksGroup 48685 Hayes Shelby Township, MI 48315 EXAMINER MEKHLIN, ELI S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 1728 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 07/26/2012 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 TAO XIE _______________ Appeal 2010-009638 Application 12/119,6471 Technology Center 1700 ________________ Before CHUNG K. PAK, PETER F. KRATZ, and KAREN M. HASTINGS, Administrative Patent Judges. PAK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Rejection2 of claims 6 through 17.3 We have jurisdiction pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6. We REVERSE. 1 Application 12/119,647 (Application’647), filed on May 13, 2008, which claims benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119 (e) of US 60/939,678, filed on May 23, 2007. 2 Office action mailed September 15, 2009 (“Final Rejection”; cited as “FR”). Appeal 2010-009638 Application 12/119,647 2 INTRODUCTION Details of the appealed subject matter are recited in representative appealed claims 6 and 14 of Application’647, which are reproduced below from the Claims Appendix to the Appeal Brief: 6. A method comprising: providing a fuel cell bipolar plate having a first face with a reactant gas flow field defined therein, the reactant gas flow field being defined at least in part by a plurality of lands and channels; filling the channels with a first material, the first material being capable of being solidified, the first material comprising a means for forming pores; and thereafter forming the first material into a three- dimensional porous structure in the solid state wherein the three-dimensional porous structure has interconnected porous structures. 14. A method comprising: providing a fuel cell bipolar plate having a reactant gas flow field formed in a first face thereof, the reactant gas flow field comprising a plurality of lands and channels; and placing a porous three-dimensional structure into and substantially filling a plurality of the channels where in the three-dimensional structure has interconnected pores. (emphasis added). 3 Claims 1 through 5 and 18 are also pending, but have been withdrawn from consideration. See Appeal Brief filed on January 13, 2010 (“App. Br.”), p. 3. Appeal 2010-009638 Application 12/119,647 3 Appellant seeks review of the following grounds of rejection maintained by the Examiner in the Answer4: (1) Claims 6 through 10 and 13 through 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combined teachings of Koncar5, Wilkinson6, and Tsujioka7; (2) Claim 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combined teachings of Koncar, Wilkinson, and Tsujioka, as applied to claims 6 through 10 and 13 through 17 above, further combined with Butler8; and (3) Claim 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combined teachings of Koncar, Wilkinson, and Tsujioka, as applied to claims 6 through 10 and 13 through 17 above, further combined with Allen.9 4 Examiner’s Answer mailed on April 15, 2010 (“Ans.”). 5 United States Patent No. 5,942,347, issued to Gerald J. Koncar et al. on August 24, 1999. 6 United States Patent No. 6,413,664 B1, issued to David P. Wilkinson et al. on July 2, 2002. 7 Norio Tsujioka et al., “A New Preparation Method for Well-Controlled 3D Skeletal Epoxy Resin-Based Polymer Monoliths,” Macromolecules, Vol. 38, No. 24, 2005, pp. 9901-9903. 8 United States Patent No. 6,251,308 B1, issued to Kurt L. Butler on June 26, 2001. 9 United States Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0151975 A1 to Jeffrey P. Allen published on August 5, 2004. Appeal 2010-009638 Application 12/119,647 4 DISCUSSION In rejecting independent claims 6 and 14, the Examiner acknowledges that there is no disclosure in Koncar “as to whether a three-dimensional hydrophilic porous structure is inserted into the flow channels [of its fuel cell bipolar plate] “to further facilitate water management in a fuel cell flow plate.” Ans. 4. To remedy this deficiency in Koncar, the Examiner relies on the disclosures in Wilkinson and in Tsujioka. Ans. 4, 5, 8. The Examiner finds that Wilkinson, which is also directed to fluid flow plates in fuel cells, teaches that “a fluid flow plate can be structurally configured such that the pressure drop of the fluid as it travels through the plate can be controlled”; and that “by controlling the pressure at certain regions, pressure differentials can be used to control water flow in a fuel cell flow plate.” Ans. 4, 8, citing Wilkinson, col. 9, ll. 12-31. Wilkinson, as acknowledged by the Examiner, “is [also] silent as to whether . . . “a three- dimensional hydrophilic porous structure can be inserted into the flow channels to further facilitate water management in a fuel cell flow plate.” Ans. 5. The Examiner finds that Tsujioka, “which deals with three- dimensional structures that can help manipulate pressure drop, teaches that polymer-based skeletal and porous monoliths [three-dimensional structures] can be used in pressure-dependent systems to control the pressure drop of the system” Ans. 5, 8, citing Tsujioka, page 9901, col. 1, paragraph 1. Based on the above findings, the examiner concludes that it would have been obvious “to introduce an insert, as taught by TSUJIOKA in the fuel cell plate taught by KONCAR and WILKINSON because KONCAR teaches that water management is an important property of a fuel cell bipolar Appeal 2010-009638 Application 12/119,647 5 plate and WILKINSON teaches that water management of fluid flow plates can be improved by manipulating pressure drops in the flow plate.” Ans. 6, 7. Applicant argues that the neither Koncar nor Wilkinson teaches or suggests filling the channels of a fuel cell bipolar plate with any structure, let alone, a porous three-dimensional structure that substantially fills a plurality of channels as recited in appealed claims 6 and 14. App. Br. 6, 8, 12, and 14. Appellant argues that Tsujioka has nothing to do with fuel cells or bipolar plates. App, Br. 8, 14. Appellant argues that the disclosure in Tsujioka relied on by the Examiner, states that in the past decade, polymer based skeletal and macroporous monoliths have been utilized as chromatographic separation media, such as in high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). App. Br. 8, 14, 15, citing Tsujioka, p. 9901, col. 1; and Reply Brief,10 2. According to Tsujioka, as the separation media in HPLC, “those polymer-based monoliths realize good separation efficiency with low column pressure drop due to a combination of micron size polymer skeleton and relatively large macro-through-pores.” App. Br. 8, 14, 15, citing Tsujioka, p. 9901, col. 1. Appellant further argues that the “Examiner has made no connection that would establish an equivalency between the fluid flow and pressure issues of a high performance liquid chromatography fluid system [disclosed by Tsujioka] and that of a fuel cell bipolar plate.” Reply Br.. 2, 3. On this record, we determine that the Examiner has not supplied a sufficient factual basis to demonstrate that it would have been obvious to fill 10 Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”) filed on July 5, 2010. Appeal 2010-009638 Application 12/119,647 6 the plurality of channels of the fuel cell bipolar plate suggested by Koncar and Wilkinson with a porous three-dimensional structure, as recited in appealed claims 6 and 14. We find that the Examiner has not shown how a low pressure drop in Tsujioka’s HPLC column for separating material based on size, where fluid flows through a confined space, would have been considered applicable to controlling the pressure drop of a fluid as it travels through channels in a fuel cell separator plate that do not contain a porous material. As acknowledged by the Examiner, in the Answer, pp. 13 and 20, the two systems, i.e., HPLC and a fuel cell separator plate, “are different types of flow fields.” We concur with Appellant that the Examiner has not established an equivalency between the fluid flow and pressure issues of a high performance liquid chromatography fluid system as disclosed by Tsujioka and that of a fuel cell bipolar plate as disclosed by Koncar and Wilkinson. Furthermore, as correctly noted by Appellant, Koncar teaches a bipolar separator plate that is “hydrophilic and has a controlled porosity that facilitates in the internal humidification of the fuel cell as well as the removal of product water from the fuel cell.” App. Br. 7, citing col. 1, ll. 6-12. Moreover, Koncar teaches that the hydrophilic agent is “substantially uniformly dispersed throughout” its separator plate. Col. 3, ll. 61-64. The Examiner has not shown how modifying the Koncar separator plate with the Tsujioka polymer monoliths as proposed by the Examiner in the rejection of claims 6 and 14 would have provided a bipolar separator plate having the hydrophilic characteristic required by Koncar. Appeal 2010-009638 Application 12/119,647 7 Accordingly, for the above stated reasons, we REVERSE all the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) advanced by the Examiner. ORDER We REVERSE the REJECTIONS of claims 6 through 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combined teachings of the cited prior art.11 REVERSED sld 11 The record in Application’647 shows that an Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) was filed on August 5, 2011, after the filing of the Reply Brief and the mailing of the Examiner’s Answer. The IDS lists the Chinese Patent CN 101595585 (CN ‘858), which was published on Dec. 12, 2009. We note US published application 2010/11991 (US ‘991) is the US equivalent of CN ‘858. US ‘991, unlike CN ‘858, is available as prior art under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e).