Appeal No. 2005-1107
Application No. 10/621,201
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art within the meaning of
§ 103 in view of the applied prior art. Accordingly, we will
sustain the examiner's rejection for the reasons set forth in the
Answer, which we incorporate herein, and we add the following
primarily for emphasis.
Hockaday, like appellants, discloses a surface replica fuel
cell capable of operating on hydrogen that is obtained from
methanol. Also, Hockaday discloses a fuel tank 119 for
containing the methanol. It is appellants' contention that the
fuel tank of Hockaday does not meet the requirements of the
claimed reservoir, and appellants supply three dictionary
definitions of "reservoir" to support their position. However,
like the examiner, we do not understand how the fuel tank of
Hockaday does not fulfill appellants' definition of "a place
where something is kept in store" and "a part of an apparatus in
which a liquid is held" (page 9 of Brief, last paragraph).
Manifestly, a fuel tank is a place where fuel is kept in store
before use, and is an apparatus which holds the liquid fuel.
Hence, we find no error in the examiner's reasoning that the fuel
tank of Hockaday qualifies as a reservoir.
Appellants also maintain that "the fuel filled fuel tank 119
of Hockaday is not a reservoir in that the fuel tank is punctured
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