Appeal No. 2006-1478
Application No. 09/970,014
salad dressing with a degree of emulsion stability prior to
separation (i.e., reversion) which patentee considered to be
insufficient (again see lines 23-28 in column 1). To rectify
this perceived insufficiency, Errass provided his salad dressing
composition with a stability duration of “several months” (again
see lines 24-25 in column 2). Similarly, Lowe discloses a salad
dressing emulsion having stability for only a few minutes and
thus referred to as a temporary emulsion (see the last full
paragraph on page 266). Finally, the prior art described by the
appellants on pages 1-3 of their specification includes salad
dressing emulsions having a stability prior to reversion/phase
separation which ranged in duration from minutes to months.
Under these circumstances, it is our determination that
salad dressings having emulsion stability ranging from a few
minutes (e.g., see Lowe) to several months (e.g., see Errass)
were known in the prior art as acceptable. This leads us to
conclude that it would have been obvious for an artisan, in
providing Swisher’s salad dressing composition with a carrageenan
stabilizer of the type taught by Errass, to employ a quantity of
stabilizer sufficient to achieve an acceptable stability duration
such as a few minutes (e.g., again see Lowe) or more (e.g., a few
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