DETAILED ACTION
DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
CONTINUING DATA
This application is a 371 of PCT/KR2020/008343 06/26/2020
FOREIGN APPLICATIONS
KOREA, REPUBLIC OF 10-2019-0077417 06/27/2019
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on December 23, 2025 has been entered.
Claims 1-11, 14, 17, and 19-20 are pending.
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group II (claims 11 and 14-20) in the reply filed on May 1, 2025 is acknowledged.
Claims 1-10 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on May 1, 2025.
The rejection of claims 14 and 17-20 under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph is withdrawn because the rejection was intended to include claims 15 and 17-20 and claim 15 was cancelled.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 11, 14-15, and 17-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li (Alcohol 42 (2008) 683-687, previously cited by the examiner) in view of Na (KR 1020120126587, published 2012, machine translation, cited on IDS).
Li teaches that cyanidin 3-glucoside is useful for treatment of ethanol-induced gastric lesions (see abstract). Cyanidin-3-glucoside is found in the fruit of aronia, as disclosed by Meng (cited on the IDS submitted December 23, 2025). “Obtained from a fruit of aronia” is a product-by-process limitation. Product-by-process limitations are based on the product itself and not the method of obtaining it. Thus, cyanidin 3-glucoside meets the limitation “anthocyanin obtained from a fruit of aronia.”
Li does not teach that the cyanidin 3-glucoside was complexed with a negatively charged polysaccharide.
Na teaches that forming a composite of anthocyanin and negatively charged polysaccharide stabilizes the anthocyanin. See abstract. The anthocyanin is stabilized in order to increase its activity (page 5). The anthocyanin-polysaccharide complex improves the retention period of the anthocyanin (page 7) and has high stability in low pH (page 8). The half-life in the body is promoted (end of page 10). Solubility of the anthocyanin is also improved (page 8). The polysaccharide is such as alginic acid. See claim 3. The anthocyanin includes cyanidin 3-glucoside (claim 4). The ratio of anthocyanin to polysaccharide is 0.01:1 o 1:1000 or 0.01 to 1:30 (page 10). In one example, 2 mg of anthocyanin was complexed with 10 mg of alginic acid, for a ratio of 1:5. See page 16.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed to treat ethanol-induced gastric ulcers using a composite of anthocyanin and negative charged polysaccharide because anthocyanin is used to treat ethanol-induced gastric ulcers and complexation of anthocyanin with a negatively charged polysaccharide improves its stability, solubility, and activity. The skilled artisan would have utilized the complex instead of the anthocyanin alone in order to achieve better activity, stability, and/or solubility. MPEP 2144.05 states that in the case where the claimed ranges “overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art” a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In this instance, the claimed range lies inside the broad range disclosed by the prior art and overlaps with the narrower 0.01 to 1:30 range taught by the prior art.
Response to Arguments
Applicant argues that anthocyanins are not a single compound but rather a class of compounds, and that the types and ratios of the compounds can vary depending on the source material. Anthocyanins derived from the fruit of aronia have larger amounts of cyanidin-3-galactoside or cyanidin-3-arabinoside and smaller amounts of cyanidin-3-glucoside. This argument is not persuasive because the claims require an ionically bonded anthocyanin-alginic acid complex comprising the anthocyanin. Page 8 of the current specification states that “the anthocyanin” is a water-soluble pigment glycoside present in a plant, and page 9 of the current specification states that the said anthocyanin can be “at least one” selected from a list which contains cyanidin-3-glucoside. Thus, the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims includes a composition containing only one anthocyanin.
Conclusion
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/LAYLA D BERRY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1693