Appeal No. 1997-3886
Application No. 08/232,460
OPINION
A. The Rejection in view of French ‘669, Segall, Myers and
Powrie
The process recited in claim 74 on appeal comprises
subjecting vegetables to a gaseous atmosphere consisting
essentially of about 80 to 99% volume of gaseous argon and
about 1 to 20% volume of krypton, xenon, neon or mixtures
thereof.
The examiner finds that French ‘669 discloses stabilizing
biological products by injecting rare gases3 including argon,
xenon, krypton and neon into the biological products in a
closed container (Office action dated July 9, 1996, Paper No.
28, page 4). The examiner also finds that Segall teaches the
preservation of vegetables by contacting this food with argon
and other noble gases (id., paragraph bridging pages 4-5).
The examiner further finds that Powrie discloses preservation
of produce such as vegetables by packaging vegetables with
noble gases in conjunction with oxygen as a carrier gas while
3It is not contested that “rare gases” are the same as
“noble gases” and include helium (He), neon (Ne), argon (Ar),
krypton (Kr) and xeon (Xe). See Hackh’s Chemical Dictionary,
p. 722 (3rd ed., The Blakiston Co., Inc., 1953), a copy of
which is attached to this decision.
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