Appeal No. 95-3765
Application No. 08/084,388
which are capable of reacting together under heat and/or
pressure to form additional metal soap, e.g., a metal
carbonate/oxide/ hydroxide and a monocarboxylic acid
(see appealed claim 1 and the specification, page 3, lines 1-
6, and page 4, lines 18-24).
The examiner states that Rieber teaches the preparation
of metal soap granules by mixing metal
oxide/hydroxide/carbonate with carboxylic fatty acids where
the metal components are used in excess (answer, page 4,
citing column 3, lines 18-22, of Rieber). The examiner has
determined that the difference between the “invention” of
claim 1 and any of the cited references “is essentially nil”
(Id.). The examiner then concludes that it would have been
obvious “to follow the teachings of Dunski or Rieber and use
metal oxides, hydroxides, carbonates or monocarboxylic acids
as the binder materials for metal soaps to form the granules
or pellets.” (answer, page 5).
We find that there is no factual basis to support the
examiner’s conclusion. Appealed claim 1, as noted above,
requires a binder with a plurality of components while Rieber
only discloses or teaches one component being used in excess
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Last modified: November 3, 2007