Appeal 2006-3262
Application 10/780,255
Secondly, even if the Examiner had established that Hines would
have led one of ordinary skill in the art to contact meat with an aqueous
ammonium hydroxide solution as an equivalent process to the ammonia
containing atmosphere - meat contact disclosed in Hines, the Examiner has
not reasonably explained how Hines together with Roth would have led one
of ordinary skill in the art to modify Roth’s pressurized gas contact and
pressure letdown method to include an aqueous ammonium hydroxide -
meat contacting step. The Examiner simply has not explained how an
aqueous ammonium hydroxide solution would be employed as a working
gas in Roth. After all, the Examiner’s expressed position in the Answer is
that Hines furnishes motivation to employ ammonia gas in Roth as the
working gas thereof (Answer 3). However, the latter proposed modification
of Roth would not result in a process corresponding to the claimed process.
This is because the claimed process requires a comminuted meat – ammonia
hydroxide solution contacting step followed by a mechanical action step, not
an ammonia gas-meat contacting step followed by a mechanical action step.
The Examiner’s commentary in response to arguments set forth in the Brief
make this deficiency in the Examiner’s stated obviousness position plain
(Answer 3-4).
It follows that we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection
on this record.
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