Appeal 2006-0891
Application 10/224,886
We conclude that the Examiner has established a prima facie case of
obviousness with respect to the subject matter of claim 25 that has not been
sufficiently rebutted by Appellant.
Claims 18, 19, and 21
Turning to claim 18, the claim we select to represent the issues for the
group of claims 18, 19, and 21, we note that this claim requires a step of
combining dough ingredients into a dough ingredient mixture and a step of
uniformly distributing encapsulated chemical leavening agent into the dough
ingredient mixture using a low shear method. The low shear method can be
a low speed mixing method. There is no dispute that a mixing method
conducted at less than 36 rpm is a low speed mixing method.
The Examiner has established a prima facie case of obviousness with
regard to the subject matter of claim 18. Kuechle suggests both a step of
combining dough ingredients into a dough ingredient mixture and a step of
uniformly distributing encapsulated chemical leavening agent into the dough
ingredient mixture using low speed mixing, i.e., mixing at speeds of less
than 36 rpm. In fact, there are two steps of combining dough ingredients
into a dough ingredient mixture that meet the requirements of Appellant’s
combining step. Kuechle describes forming a dough ingredient mixture by
combining dry ingredients (col. 12, ll. 3-8) and further describes forming a
second dough ingredient mixture by adding liquid ingredients to the blended
dry ingredients (col. 12, ll. 9-13). For each combining step Kuechle
suggests uniformly distributing the encapsulated chemical leavening agent
present in the dough ingredient mixture to blend the ingredients together.
(Kuechle, col. 11, ll. 27-31 for the dry ingredients and col. 11, 31-32 for the
12
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