Appeal No. 2004-2205 Page 3
Application No. 09/766,403
serums, and toilet water.” Cervantes, column 1. “The term ‘nanoemulsion’ means a
metastable oil-in-water emulsion . . . whose oil globule size is less than 150 nm, these
oil globules being stabilized with a crown of amphiphilic lipids. . . . The transparency of
these emulsions derives from the small size of the oil globules.” Specification, page 1.
The prior art “disclose[d] nanoemulsions based on fluid nonionic amphiphilic
lipids and on silicone surfactants. However, all these nanoemulsions are fluid. For
certain uses, products are sought which can be measured out and taken up easily by
hand. To do this, these products must have a certain level of consistency or viscosity.”
Id., pages 2-3. “It is known practice to use, as thickeners for aqueous media, water-
soluble or water-dispersible polymers . . . such as carbopol, wherein said polymers can
have a long chain length and a high molecular weight. When such polymers are used in
compositions in the form of nanoemulsions, some of such nanoemulsions may tend to
exhibit a decrease in at least one characteristic, such as stability and transparency.”
Page 3.
The specification discloses that “oil-in-water nanoemulsions comprising oil
globules with an average size of less than 150nm comprising at least one oil and at
least one amphiphil[i]c lipid can be thickened with at least one nonionic polymer.” Page
3. In a working example, the specification reports that an oil-in-water nanoemulsion
containing a nonionic polymer (“Aculyn 46 from Rohm & Haas”) was stable on storage
for two months at room temperature and at 45°C, and had a turbidity of 318 NTU and a
viscosity of 1300 mPa.s. See page 54. By contrast, if the Aculyn 46 was replaced with
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