Appeal 2007-1368
Application 10/601,602
Decl., first para.). The Declaration further states that commercial
membranes, Nafion 112, 1135, 115, and 117, unmodified by the addition of
Teflon fibers, would not have the claimed low alkali metal ion transport
efficiency.
Consequently, since the present record indicates that commercially
available separation membranes must be modified to obtain low alkali metal
ion transport efficiencies within the scope of claims 8-17, and the original
Specification provides no such disclosure or teaching of such necessary
modification, we concur with the Examiner that Appellants' original
Specification is non-enabling within the meaning of 112, first paragraph.
We now turn to the § 102 rejection of claim 34 over Sawamoto.
Appellants have not rebutted the Examiner's factual determination that
Sawamoto describes, within the meaning of § 102, all the structural features
of the assembly recited in claim 34. Rather, Appellants contend that
Sawamoto "is not considered prior art since this reference does not disclose
an assembly including an electrolytic cell for the production of an alkali
metal halate, as set forth in the preamble of claim 34" (page 25 of principal
Br., first para.). Appellants emphasize that Sawamoto discloses electrolytic
cells useful in the production of chlor-alkali and not an alkali metal halate.
Appellants maintain that "[i]nspection of the entire record in this case
reveals that an alkali metal halate electrolytic cell is, in fact, a structural
limitation of the Appellants' claims" (page 14 of the Reply Br., last para.).
We do not subscribe to Appellants' position. We find, like the
Examiner, that the claim 34 recitation "for the continuous, cyclic production
of an alkali metal halate" is a statement of intended use for the assembly that
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