Appeal 2007-0212
Application 10/446,483
The Examiner relies upon the following references as evidence of
obviousness:
Lehtonen US 4,996,062 Feb. 26, 1991
Vaisanen US 5,547,690 Aug. 20, 1996
Narayanaswamy US 6,759,070 B1 Jul. 6, 2004
Appellants' claimed invention is directed to a packaged dough product
and its method of preparation. The product comprises raw dough, an
oxidoreductase enzyme, such as glucose oxidase, and a substrate, such as
glucose, that reacts with oxygen in the presence of the enzyme. The enzyme
and substrate are present in an amount sufficient to consume oxygen and,
thereby, to inhibit the enzymatic discoloration of the dough.
According to the Background section of Appellants' Specification, it
was known in the art that enzymatic oxidation reactions can cause
problematic discoloration of food products during processing and storage
(page 1 of Specification, second paragraph). According to Appellants, the
claimed "enzymatic approach to inhibiting enzymatic discoloration of a
packaged dough is unique because it uses an enzyme and substrate that
competes for oxygen with other enzyme(s) and substrate(s) in a dough that
can cause discoloration" (page 7 of Br., penultimate paragraph). Appellants
explain that the claimed enzymatic approach "can advantageously permit
increased processing efficiencies by eliminating, if desired, the purging of a
packaged dough's headspace with an inert gas (e.g., nitrogen)" (page 7 of
Br., last paragraph).
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