Appeal No. 1996-3826
Application 08/222,477
disclosed to one of ordinary skill in the art that the “liquid oils” can “include various kinds of oily
substances specified in the Fire Protection Law Item No. 4,” examples of which include “gasoline”
(page 5). We find that one of ordinary skill in this art would have reasonably inferred from such
disclosure that other kinds of combustible fuels, such as light fuel oils, including diesel fuel oil, as
disclosed in Dubin (e.g., col. 3, line 45, to col. 4, line 4), can be used in the stable, oil-in-water type
emulsified fuels of Kawaai.
With respect to the disclosure in Kawaai that the oil-in-water type emulsified fuels contain “70-
85% by weight of water, and alcohol if needed, as a continuous phase” (e.g., page 2; emphasis
supplied), we find that, as pointed out by the examiner (Office action of June 1, 1995 (Paper No. 11,
page 2); answer, page 3), while Kawaai does not discloses a specific range of the amounts of water
and, optionally, of alcohol necessary to form a continuous phase in the stable emulsified fuels thereof,
the reference does disclose Kawaai Application Example 2 which exemplifies a method of preparation
of emulsified fuels in which 2 parts of a nonionic surfactant are combined with “an alcohol-containing
aqueous solution (containing 95 parts water and 5 parts of alcohol)” and fuel (page 8). We find from
Fuels No. 1 through 5 in Kawaai Table 3 that, based on the entire emulsified fuel composition, the
water content ranges from 65.196 to 83.824 wt.% and the alcohol content ranges from 3.431 to 4.412
wt.%, for a combined 68.627 to 88.235 wt.%, and the nonionic surfactant content ranges from 1.373
to 1.765 wt.%.7 We note that no alcohol is employed in the emulsified fuel compositions exemplified in
Kawaai Application Example 1 which also contain a different nonionic surfactant.8 In comparing the
viscosity of fuels having corresponding fuel/SW ratios of 30/70 and 20/80 in Examples 1 (Table 1) and
2 (Table 3), we observe that the fuels exemplified in Example 2 are reported to have lower viscosities
that fall within the range taught in the reference (e.g., page 2). We find that one of ordinary skill in this
constitute additional evidence with respect to emulsified fuels containing an amount of water in the
claimed range.
7 The sum of 102 parts of surfactant, water and alcohol comprises the “SW” of the “[fuel]/SW (Wt
ratio).”
8 The fuels in these two examples were combusted in similar pressure jet-type oil burner as shown in
the reference Figure.
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