Appeal No. 2003-0094 Page 7
Application No. 08/995,786
generated in a combustion chamber, it does not also provide electricity. Thus, in the
absence of teachings in the applied references that the addition of a fuel cell would be
warranted by an improvement to the combustor in providing driving gases to the
turbine, there would appear to be no advantage to adding a fuel cell to the Singleton
system. This being the case, we fail to perceive any teaching, suggestion or incentive
in either Singleton or Wolfe which would have led one of ordinary skill in the art to
provide the Singleton system with a fuel cell upstream of the combustor.
It is our conclusion that the combined teachings of Singleton and Wolfe fail to
establish a prima facie case of obviousness with regard to the subject matter recited in
claim 21. We therefore will not sustain the rejection of claim 21 on the basis of Single
ton and Wolfe or, it follows, of the like rejection of claims 22, 23 and 25, which depend
from claim 21.
Independent claim 26 also stands rejected as being unpatentable over Singleton
and Wolfe. Like claim 21, it requires a cooling turbine for expanding a first stream of air
and a fuel cell for receiving a second stream of air. For the reasons discussed above
regarding the rejection of claim 21, we also will not sustain this rejection of claim 26.
Endres has been added to the other two references in the rejection of claim 24,
which depends from claim 21. However, Endres does not overcome the deficiency in
suggestion to combine Singleton and Wolfe in the manner proposed by the examiner in
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