Appeal No. 1997-0527
Application No. 08/380,255
about 4,000 psig. From our perspective, the examiner has
failed to establish a prima facie case of obviousness with
respect to this claimed feature. More specifically, the
examiner has advanced on this appeal no convincing explanation
as to why the applied references would have suggested mixing
nut paste and dry solid in the aforementioned concentrations
by way of an extruder mixer.
We recognize that certain references, such as Mange and
Wong, disclose mixing various ingredients in an extruder.
Similarly, certain references, such as Dzurik and Wong,
disclose adding a water-soluble, non-fat dry solid to a nut
material. However, the examiner has not pointed out any
disclosures in the applied references which, in our view,
would have suggested mixing in an extruder the combination of
a nut paste and from about 15% to about 45% of one or more
water-soluble, non-fat dry solid as required by the appealed
claims.
Instead, with regard to the above noted dry solid
concentration feature, the examiner simply alleges that “[i]t
would have been obvious . . . to add particular ingredients in
the required amounts” (Answer, page 4) and that “[t]he
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