Appeal No. 1996-2963 Page 6
Application 07/952,427
It is well settled that the disclosure of a range in the
prior art which substantially overlaps a claimed range is
generally sufficient in and of itself to render the claimed
range prima facie obvious. See In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575,
1577-1578, 16 USPQ2d 1934-1937, 1936 (Fed. Cir. 1990); In re
Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 262, 191 USPQ 90, 96 (CCPA 1976); In
re Malagari, 499 F.2d 1297, 1303, 182 USPQ 549, 553 (CCPA
1974). This is especially true here, where one having
ordinary skill in the art would have been led to employ a pH
value corresponding to the claimed pH values by simply
following the preferred range teachings of Mohr. Discovering
the optimum or workable ranges through routine experimentation
is within the ambit of one of ordinary skill in the art. See
In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456, 105 USPQ 233, 235 (CCPA 1955).
Appellants (brief, pages 11-13) argue that Mohr does not
recognize or address the problem of the potential loss of
viral inactivation agent (methylene blue) into plastic
material during steam sterilization and the use of non-PVC
plastic with the methylene blue at the claimed pH as a
-6-
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