Appeal 2007-1685
Application 10/106,402
The Examiner relies on AAPA for a teaching of a method of making
dog chews by defatting and depilation, splitting, shredding and mixing with
adhesive, shaping and drying, and flavoring (Specification 1 and 2). The
Examiner acknowledges that AAPA does not teach the use of pigskin and
smoking. However, the Examiner maintains that it would have been obvious
to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the pigskin and smoking of
Meyer into the generic drying method of AAPA since, inter alia, Meyer
teaches that smoking was an effective means for drying rawhide. (Answer
13-14).
Appellant contends that the applied prior art fails to teach or suggest
the claimed step of "smoking the shaped hide product with gaseous smoke
to dye and flavor the shaped hide product, resulting in a finished porkhide
dog chew." (Reply Br. 10 (emphasis added)). Appellant argues that
Meyer’s use of an air or smoke oven is for the limited purpose of reducing
the moisture content of skins or comminuted particles at an intermediate
stage of production. (Reply Br. 11). Appellant contends that, at best, Meyer
discloses shaping a smoked and partially dehydrated product, not smoking a
shaped hide product as required by the claims. (Reply Br. 11).
As correctly pointed out by the Examiner, the test for determining
obviousness is what the combined teachings of the references would have
suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. (Answer 12). In this case,
however, we are persuaded by Appellant’s arguments that the combined
teachings of the references simply do not disclose or suggest the claimed
invention. Meyer discloses an intermediate processing step of smoke-drying
to reduce moisture content of pork skins to a suitable range, i.e., 10-25%, for
conducting additional processing steps, including grinding, followed by
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013