Appeal No. 1997-2936
Application No. 08/360,335
Page 3
rejections, and to the appellants’ brief and reply brief for the
appellants’ arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given
careful consideration to the appellants’ specification and
claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by appellants and the examiner.
As a consequence of our review, we make the determinations which
follow.
In our analysis below, we focus particularly on the subject
matter of claim 1 regarding (1) circulating an aqueous alkali
metal halide solution in a saline compartment of the cell,
delimited between an anionic membrane and a cationic membrane,
(2) introducing an alkali metal halide into an acidic compartment
of the cell, which is delimited between the anionic membrane and
a cationic face of a bipolar membrane, and (3) extracting a more
concentrated aqueous alkali metal hydroxide solution from an
alkaline compartment of the cell, delimited between the cationic
membrane and an anionic face of the bipolar membrane.
I. The 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) Rejection
The examiner states that Mani discloses a method of using a
three compartment electrodialysis cell comprising circulating an
alkali metal salt solution in a salt compartment of the cell,
delimited between an anionic and cationic membrane, introducing
an alkali metal salt into an acidic compartment of the cell,
delimited between the anionic membrane and a cationic face of a
bipolar membrane, and extracting alkali metal hydroxide from the
compartment, delimited between the cationic membrane and the
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