Appeal No. 2000-1292 Page 3
Application No. 08/739,836
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to the
appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
The claims on appeal are directed to the combination of a spray device,
mineralized water in the spray device, and a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide gas in
a specified relationship to propel the mineralized water out of the spray device. The
claims stand rejected as being unpatentable over Diamond in view of Reis and Ebisawa.
It is the examiner’s view that Diamond discloses all of the subject matter recited in
independent claim 1 except for the mineralized water and the volume percentages of the
claimed gas mixture. The examiner finds in Reis a teaching of dispensing mineralized
water from a spray device and in Ebisawa a teaching of using the claimed volume
percentages of nitrogen and carbon dioxide in a mixture to propel liquids from a spray
device, and concludes that it would have been obvious to modify the Diamond device in
such a manner as to meet the terms of the claim. The appellants argue in rebuttal, inter
alia, that these references would not have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art
dispensing mineralized water from a spray dispenser utilizing a mixture of nitrogen and
carbon dioxide as the propellant.
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