Appeal 2007-0492
Application 10/810,960
1 ll. 24–32). Persons capable of working in this area would thus have been familiar with
2 constructing and operating devices that handle gases at high pressures and high
3 temperatures. Moreover, in a passage cited by Appellants (Brief at 9), St-Pierre states:
4 [i]ncreasing the concentration of the reactant in reformed fuel and/or air
5 streams, that is, enrichment, has thus been considered in the art as a way
6 of improving fuel cell performance. Several enrichment methods are
commonly known that involve separating out a component from the
7 membrane, and pressure swing
8 reactant stream, including cryogenic,
9 adsorption methods. . . . In a membrane method, component separation is
10 achieved by passing the stream over the surface of a membrane that is
11 selectively permeable to a component in the stream.
12 (St-Pierre at col. 2, ll. 55–66.) Thus, taking St-Pierre at face value, enriching the air
13 stream for fuel cells using membrane technology and pressure swing adsorption methods
14 —both of which are disclosed by Appellants as being useful modes of oxygen enrichment
15 (Specification at 14–16)— have been considered in the fuel cell art. Moreover, it appears
16 from St-Pierre that both technologies are well-established. On the present record, the
17 weight of the evidence indicates that the ordinary worker in the fuel cell art would have
18 adapted a well-established oxygen enrichment technology, such as oxygen-selective
19 membranes or pressure swing adsorption, to a fuel cell system that relies on atmospheric
20 oxygen, such as the one disclosed by Okamoto. Such a person would presumably have
21 been familiar with the requirements of well-established technologies (or could readily
22 learn them from the technical literature) and would have been able to make the necessary
23 adaptations without requiring "undue experimentation." On the present record, we
24 should require extremely persuasive testimony from an acknowledged and unbiased
25 expert in the field that such was not the case. We accord no weight to mere arguments
26 from counsel that fly in the face of reasonable readings of the record.
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