Appeal 2007-1368
Application 10/601,602
We have thoroughly reviewed each of Appellants' arguments for
patentability, as well as the declaration evidence relied upon in support
thereof. However, we find that the Examiner's rejections are well-founded
and in accord with current patent jurisprudence. Accordingly, we will
sustain the Examiner's rejections for the reasons set forth in the Answer, and
we add the following primarily for emphases.
We consider first the Examiner's rejection of claims 8-17 over § 112,
first paragraph. It is the Examiner's position that Appellants' original
Specification does not enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make low
alkali metal ion transport efficiency permselective polymer membranes
within the scope of claims 8-17. The present Specification, at page 13,
states that the polymer membranes of the present invention have an alkali
metal ion transport efficiency generally less than about 60%, and claims 10
and 11 on appeal recite efficiencies of less than about 50% and 20%,
respectively. As pointed out by the Examiner, all the examples in
Appellants' Specification describe separation membranes having transport
efficiencies greater than 60%, with only Example 10 describing an
efficiency close to less than about 60%, i.e., 65%. On the other hand,
Appellants acknowledge that separation membranes of the prior art that are
used in chlor-alkali cells have a high transport efficiency for alkali metal
ions of the order of 92-96%.
Hence, since the transport efficiency of separation membranes within
the scope of claims 8-17 is considerably less than the transport efficiency of
prior art separation membranes, we agree with the Examiner that it is
incumbent upon Appellants to disclose in the original Specification how one
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