Appeal 2006-3208
Application 10/097,232
Claim 8 requires “a xanthene dye, thiazine dye or mixture thereof;”
and claim 9 requires “acetonapthone, acetophenone, benzophenone or a
mixture thereof.” In addressing these two claims, we further rely on Alder.
Alder discloses one or more of these claimed dyes, for example, xanthene
dyes and benzophenones (FF 16). Further, the skilled artisan would have
been able to identify well-known, alternative dyes capable of generating
singlet oxygen. See KSR Int’l, 127 S. Ct. at 1741 (“a court can take account
of the inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art
would employ”). Given Goodrich’s teachings regarding using
photosensitizer dyes to destroy microorganisms, the skilled artisan would
have looked to other prior art teachings relating to such dyes, for example,
Alder, and would have applied those teachings to the commercial conveyor
lubricants disclosed in Li and Appellants’ Specification.
3. CLAIMS 13-15 AND 19: CHELATING AGENTS
Claims 13-15 and 19 further limit claim 1 by requiring a chelating
agent (claim 13) in varying amounts (claims 14 &15). Claim 19 further
limits the chelating agent to “ethylene diamine tetraacetate,
tris(hydroxmethyl)aminomethane or a mixture thereof.”
DICOLUBE MSDS discloses “ethylenediamine-tetracetate” in
amounts less that 5%, as an ingredient of DICOLUBE™ Conveyor belt
lubricant (DICOLUBE MSDS 1). Without evidence of unexpected results
due to the numerical limitations in claims 13 and 14, it would have been
within the level of skill in the art to optimize the amount of chelating agent
used. See, e.g., In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (quoted
supra p. 10).
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