Appeal No. 2006-0728 Page 6
Application No. 10/198,714
skin. Ramachandran does not, however, disclose that the skin was wet first or rinsed
afterward, as required by claim 8. Ramachandran discloses a shampoo composition in
Example 1 (columns 7-8), but the exemplary composition does not contain a metal
pyrithione. We therefore agree that Ramachandran does not identically disclose a
method meeting all the limitations of claim 8.
3. Obviousness
The examiner rejected claims 10-14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious in view of
Ramachandran and either Takaya2 and Kaufman.3 We agree that Ramachandran and
Takaya support a prima facie case of obviousness, so we need not discuss Kaufman.
Claim 10 is directed to the method of claim 1, where the “metal pyrithione is in
the form of particles having a size distribution in which 90% of the particles have a size
of up to 100 microns.” Takaya teaches “a fine particulate polyvalent metal salt of
2-mercaptopyridine-N-oxide having a size distribution in which particles having a size
below 0.2 micron are contained in amounts not smaller than 50 wt%.” Page 7, last
paragraph.4 Takaya suggests that the fine particulate metal pyrithione salts are useful
in shampoos because they form stable dispersions. Pages 3-4.
We agree with the examiner that it would have made it obvious to a person of
ordinary skill in the art to use the fine particulate zinc pyrithione salts taught by Takaya
in the composition taught by Ramachandran, in order to obtain a shampoo composition
in which zinc pyrithione was stably dispersed.
2 Takaya et al., EP 0173259, published March 5, 1986.
3 Kaufman et al., U.S. Patent 6, 017,562, issued January 25, 2000.
4 Pyrithione is also known as 2-mercaptopyridine-N-oxide. Kaufman, column 1, lines 19-22.
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007