Appeal No. 1997-4381
Application 08/440,734
obviousness over Payne or Hettinga in view of Nordstrom.
The examiner relies on Hettinga and Payne for establishing a process of making
cheese which includes fermenting a mixture with a bacterial starter culture, making a curd,
cutting the curd and curing the curd. The examiner acknowledges that neither
Hettinga nor Payne teach using a peptide blocker in a cheese making process or adding
such a blocker peptide to a starter culture. Answer, page 6.
The examiner subsequently relies on Nordstrom as evidence of the digestion of
immunoglobulins with papain to produce peptides with antiphage activity. The examiner
indicates, however, that Nordstrom does not disclose using the digested immunoglobulins
to prevent phage attack on bacteria used in the cheese making process. The examiner
argues, however, that [Answer, page 7]
[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the
art at the time the invention was made to use the preparation
taught by Nordstrom as an additive to inhibit phages which are
detrimental to the cheese making processes of Hettinga and
Payne. The digested immunoglobulins are known to be
antiphage and the determination of the particular phages upon
which they are effective is within the purview of the ordinarily
skilled artisan and would be a matter of routine
experimentation. This is especially true because Nordstrom
teaches that the immunoglobulin acts on the phage itself and
not the target microorganism.
To establish obviousness based on a combination of the elements disclosed in the
prior art, there must be some motivation, suggestion or teaching of the desirability of
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