Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-4, 6, 10, and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0083304 to Dickson (“Dickson”). Dickson discloses a fuel cell sheet that, during manufacture at least, includes a bipoloar with membrane electrode assembly applied thereto, the membrane electrode assembly including a gas diffusion layer. Dickson at paragraph [0043]. At one point, the bipolar plate/MEA are sandwiched between a fist magnet/ferromagnet (metal having magnetic properties) and a second magnet/ferromagnet, with a polymer frame/gasket structure formed around the perimeter of the bipolar plate and around the MEA via injection molding, the thermoplastic polymers being softer than any known ferromagnet. Id. at paragraph [0046].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 7-9, and 12, are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. Regarding claims 5 and 12, Dickson is silent regarding laminating the magnet/ferromagnet with a resin.
Regarding claims 7-9, the prior art fails to disclose the recited structure where a gasket is formed via compression molding, instead disclosing injection molding. Moreover, it is unclear whether the method of Dickson could be adapted to use compression molding instead of injection molding since such a process could potentially break the holding of the magnet sheets used in it.
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/WYATT P MCCONNELL/Examiner, Art Unit 1727
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