Appeal No. 2002-0454
Application No. 09/083,122
The examiner acknowledges that Lewis does not teach the process involved in
combining extracts at pH10, refluxing the treated extract to obtain potassium hydroxy
citrate, milling, sifting, blending, and packing the dried potassium hydroxycitric acid
under nitrogen. Id.
The examiner relies on Lowenstein for its disclosure of a method of obtaining
hydroxycitric acid from the Garcinia acid lactone by base hydrolysis with potassium
hydroxide with heating followed by acidification. Lowenstein, column 1, lines 35-39;
Answer, page 4. The examiner argues the heating step is the equivalent of a refluxing
step.
“With respect to [the steps of] combining extracts at pH 10, refluxing the treated
extract to obtain potassium hydroxy citrate”, the examiner concludes “it would have
been quite obvious for one having an ordinary skill in the art to extract the dried fruit
rinds of Garcinia cambogia three times with ethanol to increase the quantity of the
extracted material; furthermore, Lowenstein, the editor of Lewis' work, teaches that the
hydroxy citric acid ... may be obtained from Garcinia by base hydrolysis, e.g. potassium
hydroxide with heating followed by acidification, which means that it would have been
obvious for the one with an ordinary skill in the art to have used Lowenstein’s process
without acidification in order to produce the non-hygroscopic potassium salts of
hydroxycitric acid.” Id.
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