Appeal 2007-1678
Application 09/800,547
contend that “there is no teaching whatsoever in Trainor '084 regarding
making multiple products in one pass.” (Br. 10). This brings up an issue of
claim interpretation. Specifically, does claim 1 require making multiple
products in one pass?
Claim 1 does not require making multiple products in one pass.
Claim 1 is directed to a process for making a dressing, “the dressing being
mayonnaise or a salad dressing.” (Claim 1, l. 21 (emphasis added)).
Because “or” is used between “mayonnaise” and “salad dressing,” the claim
encompasses making either one of the dressings and does not require both be
made. The language “wherein the mayonnaise and salad dressing are made
in the same production line” (Claim 1, ll. 23-24), does not modify an
affirmative step of the process. The process steps recited in the claim
describe a one pass operation in which one dressing is made. The clause
“wherein the mayonnaise and salad dressing are made in the same
production line” seems to merely define a future act and is not particularly
limiting on the affirmative process steps of the claim.1
Appellants further contend:
[Trainor] does not teach, suggest, or disclose, for example, the
steps of forming a premix of raw ingredients which include an
oil phase and an emulsifier phase to make a coarse emulsion to
be fed in a single pass to an in-line mixer/emulsifier having a
specific stator and rotor arrangement as claimed. Furthermore,
Trainor '084 fails to disclose or suggest texture characteristics
1 Should these claims be the subject of further prosecution, the Examiner
should consider whether the claims fail to comply with 35 U.S.C. § 112, ¶ 2
in failing distinctly to claim what Appellants in their Brief insist is the actual
invention. See In re Collier, 397 F.2d 1003, 1005, 158 USPQ 266, 267-68
(CCPA 1968).
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