Appeal 2007-3580
Application 10/359,976
We have considered all of Appellants’ arguments and find them
unpersuasive for the reasons below.
Claim 55 recites “phase shifting said fuel or oxidant stream
oscillations an amount that facilitates matching” the availability of fuel at the
anode of the fuel cell with the availability of oxidant at the cathode of the
fuel cell. Such claim language, “facilitates matching,” does not require that
the amount of fuel and oxidant be matched exactly. The language requires
only that the matching be facilitated. In other words, an excess of fuel or
oxidant may be present and the claim phrase “facilitates matching” would
still be satisfied.
In view of our claim construction, we determine that the “facilitates
matching” claim language encompasses having an excess of oxidant or fuel
and therefore would be satisfied even if the amount of fuel or oxidant in the
fuel cell is greater than required as argued by Appellants. Moreover, the
Examiner’s position is reasonable that “the amount of fuel would necessarily
have to match the amount of oxidant during normal operation of the fuel
cell” (Answer 5). Additionally, Carlstrom, Jr. discloses that the purpose of
his pressure oscillation is to increase the amount of reactants (i.e., fuel and
oxidant) that permeate through the diffusion layer (i.e., facilitate matching)
so as to achieve high current densities (Carlstrom, col. 7, ll. 15-17; col. 8, ll.
5-36). Accordingly, Carlstrom, Jr. teaches or would have suggested the
argued “facilitates matching” claim feature.
Regarding the “phase shifting” claim feature, as noted above,
Carlstrom, Jr. discloses phase shifting (i.e., out-of-phase control) with regard
to pressure oscillations (Carlstrom, Jr., Figure 14). As noted above with
claims 1, 5 and 8-10, the “oscillations” of claim 55 are not limited to solely
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