Appeal No. 2001-2397 Page 7
Application No. 08/855,779
2. Obviousness
The examiner rejected claims 11-43 as obvious over Sau. These claims
are directed to various specific types of personal care compositions, comprising
the composition of claim 1 and a solvent (by virtue of their dependence on claim
4). For example, claim 12 is directed to a “shampoo comprising an effective
amount of the personal care composition of claim 4,” claim 13 is directed to a
“conditioner comprising an effective amount of the personal care composition of
claim 4,” and so on.
In contrast to his treatment of claim 1, the examiner did consider the
preamble of claims 11-43 to limit the claimed compositions. See the Examiner’s
Answer, page 5: “The patent does not disclose the claimed features like
conditioner, shampoo, sun care, shower gel, etc.” For this reason, presumably,
he did not reject the claims as anticipated. However, he pointed out that Sau
teaches the disclosed hydrophobically modified polysaccharides to be “useful as
thickeners in shampoos and cosmetics.” See Sau, column 10, lines 8-11. The
examiner concluded that
it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the
time the invention was made to use the compositions in the above
listed formulations [i.e., shampoos, conditioners, etc.] as it is well
known in the “personal care[”] industry to utilize thickeners,
solvents, surfactants. No patentable distinction is seen in the use
of an old composition in various personal care formulations, [in the]
absence of any evidence of criticality.
Examiner’s Answer, page 5. The examiner did not elaborate further on what
specific composition(s) would have been rendered obvious by the prior art.
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007