Appeal No. 98-3013
Application No. 08/556,211
would inherently produce water droplets within the claimed
range of 0.01 to 0.5 mm. Furthermore, since it is notoriously
well known in the art that mass transfer by a gas into a
liquid is increased by atomizing the liquid in order to
increase the effective surface area, we find that it would
have been a matter of obviousness for one of ordinary skill in
the art to determine the appropriate size of the atomized
droplets in order to optimize the amount of gaseous carbonic
acid absorbed by the water. In re Boesch, 617 F.2d 272, 276,
205 USPQ 215, 219 (CCPA 1980). In relevant part, Mueller, who
also discloses an apparatus for making carbonated water,
discloses "[t]o success-fully carbonate liquids to the maximum
degree it is primarily essential that the liquid to be
carbonated shall be presented in a finely divided state to the
carbonic acid gas so as to present as large a surface as
possible to the latter" (page 3, lines
122-127).
Also, since claim 1 encompasses an apparatus wherein 97%
of the supplied water exits apertures in the sidewalls of the
receptacle and only 3% of the supplied water exits through
apertures in the bottom wall of the receptacle, we concur with
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