Appeal No. 1998-1674 Page 5
Application No. 08/437,712
convinced us that routine experimentation to optimize the use of a synthetic surfactant mixture for bar
firmness would have reasonably suggested the separate quantities required by the claim.
In the arguments, the Examiner points to Example BB as most representative of Appellants'
composition (Answer, page 5). The composition of example BB contains 23 weight percent water, a
level much greater than the level of 2 weight percent or less required by claim 13 and the level of 2 to
10 weight percent water required by claim 19. The Examiner recalculates the percentages of the other
components based on a water content of zero. As the recalculated percentages are within the ranges of
the claims, the Examiner concludes that a prima facie case of obviousness is established (Answer,
page 6).
The Examiner does not expressly indicate the reason or suggestion present in the prior art
which would have led one of ordinary skill in the art to dehydrate the composition of Example BB to a
water level of zero. The Examiner does point out that column 10, lines 46-52 of Kacher suggests that
compositions can be made with large amounts of water and the water level reduced to as low as about
1 to 2 percent (Final Rejection, pages 3-4). However, we are not convinced that the disclosure that
some compositions of the invention of Kacher can be dehydrated to water levels of about 1 to 2
percent would have led one of ordinary skill in the art to dehydrate the specific composition of Example
BB to 1 to 2 percent water for the following reasons.
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