Appeal 2007-0652
Application 10/320,028
final personal care composition in a static mixer. Manifestly, it is
notoriously well-known to give a final mix to a product composition after
all the ingredients have been added.
Also, we find no error in the Examiner's reliance on Phallen for
establishing the obviousness of employing the claimed electronically
controlled servo-driven rotary pump for delivering the first aqueous phase
into the blending tube. It is evident from Appellants' Specification that the
claimed rotary pump was conventional in the art at the time of filing the
present application. Appellants tribute no unexpected result to the use of the
known rotary pump.
As for separately rejected claim 14, we subscribe to the Examiner's
reasoning that it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art
to use the flow meter controlled mixing valve of Pfening in the manu-
facturing process in order to obtain the desired proportion of the individual
liquids (see Pfening at col. 1, ll. 10-14).
Appellants, while recognizing that Lorenzi discloses homogenized
personal care compositions, note that the compositions of reference
Examples 1-89 are not homogenized. However, simply because Lorenzi
discloses homogenized and non-homogenized personal care compositions
does not undermine the obviousness of making homogenized compositions.
Appellants also emphasize that Lorenzi does not teach the concept of
late variant addition, and Cornelis teaches late stage addition of a variants to
minimize their degradation to the harsh conditions of heating, drying, and
homogenization. Appellants maintain that, in contrast, their "objectives
were development of a manufacturing system suitable for producing variants
of a base product with different color, fragrance, and/or promotional
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