Appeal No. 94-3184
Application 07/924,828
the specification, as originally filed, fails to provide support
for a critical range of “3 to about 10% by weight water” recited
in claim 5. We affirm the rejection.
Claim 5 recites a composition for use as a fuel comprising
"from about 3 to about 10% by weight water." The specification
states (p.3, lines 21-23):
Generally speaking, the water will be present
in an amount of less than about 10 percent-
by-weight, more preferably in the range of
from about 3 to about 8 percent-by-weight.
[Emphasis added.]
The claim recites an upper limit of "about 10% by weight
water." However, the specification expressly states that water
is present in an amount of "less than about 10 percent-by-weight"
(emphasis added). Therefore, we agree with the examiner that
there is no support for the upper limit of "about 10% by weight
water" recited in claim 5. We note that appellants were willing
to amend claim 5 to obviate this rejection. In an amendment
filed under 37 CFR § 1.116(a), appellants proposed to amend claim
5 with the language of "less than about 10% down to about 3% by
weight water" (paper no. 7). However, the examiner did not enter
the amendment to claim 5 (paper no. 8).
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007