Ex Parte Drake et al - Page 5



              Appeal 2007-0489                                                                      
              Application 10/190,822                                                                
                    Appellants invented a fuel cell system that includes a main fuel                
              cell, a fuel stream delivery system, an oxidant stream delivery system,               
              and a sensor system (Specification 3: 22-25).  The sensor functions to                
              detect chemicals that are poisonous to the fuel cell systems                          
              (Specification 2: 20-24).  Exemplary poisons to the fuel cell system                  
              include sulfur and carbon monoxide (Specification paragraph bridging                  
              pages 4 and 5).                                                                       
                    Meltser describes a method for efficiently reducing the carbon                  
              monoxide (CO) content of an H2 rich fuel gas for a H2 and O2 fuel cell                
              (Meltser, col. 2, ll. 58-65).  Meltser discloses that carbon monoxide                 
              contained in a hydrogen rich reformate stream must be removed or reduced              
              to very low concentrations through the use of a preferential oxidation                
              reaction in a PROX reactor (Meltser, cols. 1-2).  Meltser discloses that a            
              sufficient amount of oxygen must be supplied to the fuel stream to react with         
              and reduce the carbon monoxide present (Meltser, col. 3, ll. 5-11). Meltser           
              discloses the sensors measure a concentration of hydrogen in the fuel stream          
              and sends the corresponding signal to the electronic control module                   
              (Meltser, col. 4, ll. 17-24).  Since the sensors of Meltser function to measure       
              the hydrogen content in the fuel stream, there is also a determination as to          
              the carbon monoxide content in the fuel stream, so that the appropriate               
              amount of oxygen can be added to the fuel stream for reaction with the                
              carbon monoxide.  Thus, the chemical sensors of Meltser provide an                    
              indication of when the chemical sensor is exposed to at least one of the              
              electrocatalytic poisons.                                                             
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