Appeal No. 1996-2208
Application No. 08/180,194
refers to as “the admitted prior art” (Paper No. 28, page 3 and Paper No. 29, pages 3 and
9 through 11). With the filing of the Supplemental Examiner’s Answer, the rejection of the
claims appears to be premised on the combined disclosures of Bartels I, Bartels II, Visser,
Frey, Bergey’s Manual and Parker.
We reverse.
DISCUSSION
The claimed invention is directed to a process of debittering enzymatically
hydrolyzed protein by incubating a slurry of the hydrolyzed protein with a Lactobacillus
helveticus culture. Claim 18 specifies that the protein is plant, meat or fish protein, while
claims 31 and 35 specify that the protein is cheese or casein, respectively; certain of the
claims require incubating at a particular pH, or heat shocking the bacterial culture before it
is added to the hydrolyzed protein. All of the claims require incubating the hydrolyzed
protein with the L. helveticus culture within a specific temperature range to obtain a
debittered product: from 45EC to 60EC (claims 18 through 21, 25 through 33, 35 through
37, 39 and 40); 50EC to 60EC (claims 22, 34 and 38); or 45EC to 55EC (claims 41 through
43).
Bartels I evaluates the effects of adding freeze-shocked cultures of L. helveticus to
milk during cheese manufacturing. Freeze-shocked bacterial cultures are thawed and
added to milk; the milk is ripened for one hour at 31EC; rennet extract is added and the
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