Appeal No. 2002-1882
Application 09/756,383
Bowers discloses a composition which is capable of being
added to gasoline and includes at least one fuel-soluble platinum
group metal compound (abstract; col. 3, lines 24-32). As
platinum group metals, platinum in combination with palladium
and/or rhodium is preferred (col. 5, lines 54-58). In an example
a platinum coordination compound is used in combination with a
rhodium coordination compound (col. 12, lines 40-41). The
preference for, and exemplification of, platinum in combination
with rhodium would have led one of ordinary skill in the art to
use a combination of compounds of these metals. The teaching
that “[w]here the platinum group metal compound, or one of the
several such to be employed, is sensitive to moisture, e.g.,
metal acetylacetonates, it is important to maintain the moisture
content of the solvent an [sic, and] total additive composition
sufficiently low that no significant platinum group metal is
precipitated” (col. 7, lines 27-32) would have fairly suggested,
to one of ordinary skill in the art, using, as the platinum
compound and/or the rhodium compound, an acetylacetonate.
The appellants’ claimed invention, therefore, would have
been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art over
Bowers, alone or in combination with Epperly.
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