Appeal No. 2002-0707 4
Application No. 09/093,574
Stucky does not specifically describe his container as
containing spend fuel rod. Instead he describes his
invention as applying to toxic and radioactive materials.
Stucky, column 1, lines 24-29. Spent fuel rods are
radioactive. Spent fuel rods are waste. (That is what is
implied by the term “spent”). Spent fuel rods are
materials. They can therefore be classified as radioactive
waste materials.
See Answer, page 4. We disagree with the examiner’s analysis.
Stucky is directed to engineered cementitious barriers for isolating radioactive waste
materials. See column 4, lines 19-29. Getters are utilized in the barriers and include
materials that, “adsorb, absorb, chemically react, ionically bond, trap, attract, or otherwise
bind to selected liquids, gases or ions.” See column 4, lines 39-43. These materials
function by containing radioactive waste materials. See column 4, lines 33-38, 44-48
and column 3, lines 5-24. The getters include zeolites as required by the claimed subject
matter. See column 4, lines 42-43. We find that Stucky is directed to the design of
contaminant barriers to prevent specific waste constituents escaping from the environment
by trapping ions. See column 27, line 61 to column 8, line 16. It is evident that the
entire thrust of Stucky is directed to low level radioactive waste.
In contrast to the radioactive waste contained in the invention, Stucky, in discussing
the Field of the Invention states that, “[u]nlike spent fuel rods which decay by emitting
high level gamma radiation, the plutonium waste from weapons plants decays by emitting
alpha particles. Alpha particles do not even penetrate paper.” See column 2, lines 3-6.
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