Appeal No. 1997-1059
Application No. 08/305,733
containing the coffee is saturated to more than 50% by volume of full
saturation.
We now turn to the examiner’s rejection. The examiner has
taken the position that the subject matter of the appealed claims
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art over the
admitted prior art within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. § 103 as follows:
The [prior art] references as set forth on pages 2 and 3
teach saturation (to some degree) of coffee with inert
gases. Moreover, the French patent listed on page 3,
first paragraph of the specification discloses injecting
of a coffee space with argon. Clearly, said coffee would
then be saturated to a certain degree with said argon. As
for the extent of saturation attained, such is seen as
nothing more than an obvious best replacement of the nobel
[sic, noble] gases suggested by the applied [prior] art
and well within the determination of the ordinary
worker in the art.3 [Examiner’s answer, p. 3.]
The appellants, on the other hand, allege that the
applied prior art merely describes “conventional blanketing
techniques” (Paper 41, revised reply brief, page 2).
According to the appellants, the “claimed saturation
methodology,” by contrast, provides unexpectedly superior
results over the prior art, as evidenced by the declarations
3 In the event of further prosecution, the examiner should
consider and apply the underlying prior art references rather than
solely the appellants’ discussion of these references in the
specification.
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007