Appeal No. 2000-1091 4
Application No. 08/874,167
It is the appellants’ position that, “[t]he examiner incorrectly contends that Pool
teaches ‘electro-osmosis and heating of the soil by a DC with AC superimposed thereon.”
See Brief, page 7. We disagree.
Pool is directed to the electroreclamation of soil material. See column 1, lines
9-10. To that effect Pool teaches “bringing a plurality of electrodes into
current–conducting connection with the soil material to be reclaimed; bringing a portion of
the electrodes into current-conducting connection with the positive or negative pole of a
source of DC voltage, bringing the remaining portion of the electrodes into contact with
the other pole of said source of DC voltage, thereby forming one or more anodes and one
or more cathodes and passing an electric current through the soil material to be reclaimed
between the differently charged electrodes.” See column 1, lines 10-20.
We find that Pool’s process is directed to bringing polluted ground material, for
example, earth polluted with heavy metals back to its original state. See column 2, lines
7-9, and 48-50. We find that although the disclosed process contains only one example,
Pool states that, “the parameters of the conditioning process of soil material according to
the invention, for example, the voltage to be maintained between the anode(s) and
cathode(s), the composition of the mediums of the region adjoining the anode(s) and
cathode(s), which composition is to be controlled, the duration of the treatment etc.,
depend upon the nature of the soil being treated (sand, peat, clay etc. ), the nature (heavy
metals, harmful anions etc.) and degree of pollution thereof, etc. and hence cannot be
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