Appeal No. 2003-1932 Page 5
Application No. 09/436,179
lamp whether the water was added solely to the magnesium salt or
a portion of the water was premixed with the luminescent material
to form a suspension prior to the addition of the luminescent
material to the magnesium salt solution. One of ordinary skill
in the art would have added the components in whatever order and
manner that was most convenient to arrive at the desired
suspension solution mixture. Premixing the luminescent material
with some water before adding that premixture to the aqueous
magnesium salt solution would have been an obvious option to one
of ordinary skill in this art. See In re Burhans, 154 F.2d 690,
692, 69 USPQ 330, 332 (CCPA 1946).
As for the pH levels claimed, Tamatani (Example 4) discloses
that the pH of the suspension solution is increased to the
alkaline range or area of pH values so as to produce magnesium
hydroxide prior to the separation (filtration) step as described
above. Tamatani does not explicitly describe the pH level of the
suspension before the increase as being about 7 and after the
increase as being about 9.5, as here claimed. However, we agree
with the examiner that one of ordinary skill in the art upon
routine experimentation would have arrived at a workable pH in
the increased pH alkaline range for forming magnesium hydroxide
as required by Tamatani and would have arrived at a preliminary
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