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 . Claims are examined herein.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I (claims 1-4) in the reply filed on 8/21/2025 is acknowledged. Therefore, claims 5-7 (Groups II-II) are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected Group, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. The requirement is deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 1-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schmitt in view of Cheng.
Schmitt: published as WO 2019/115280 A1 on June 20, 2019.
Cheng: Pea soluble polysaccharides obtained from two enzyme-assisted extraction methods and their application as acidified milk drinks stabilizers; Food Research International 109 (2018) 544–551.
Independent claim 1
Schmitt teaches about beverage products comprising plant based (i.e. vegetable) protein, including those having a pH of 5.3 to 6.3 (see ab. and Field of Invention), which imparts acidic vegetable protein beverages, as claimed.
Vegetable protein
As discussed above, Schmitt provides the use of plant based (i.e. vegetable) proteins (ab.).
Divalent cation
Schmitt provides the optional use of divalent cations (ab.), which provides one in the art with a reasonable expectation of success in their use, therefore making them obvious for said compositions.
Legume derived water-soluble polysaccharides
Schmitt does not discuss the use of legume derived water-soluble polysaccharides, as claimed.
Cheng also teaches above acidic beverages (ti.) and further provides that it is known for soybean soluble polysaccharide (SSPS) and pea soluble polysaccharide
(PSPS) to comprise the same functional groups (ab.).
Cheng provides that SSPS has been widely used in the food service industry, for the benefit of enhancing the stability of beverages, increasing the emulsifying property
of an acidic solution (about lines 16+ of the 2nd col. on pg. 544), and that
PSPS exhibited similarly beneficial properties at acid condition indicating they could be used in AMDs (Acidified Milk Drinks) (see 4. Conclusions).
Cheng further shows that PSPS comprises protein (see Table 1), therefore an acidified beverage comprising it, also comprises plant protein.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of skill in the art, at the time of filing to modify the method of making acidified beverages comprising plant protein, as Schmitt, to include the use of legume derived water-soluble polysaccharides, as claimed, because Cheng shows, that: 1) it was known for such a thing to have been successfully achieved and published at the time of filing, which means it was within the general skill of a worker in the art to select the claimed type of polysaccharides when making acidified beverages, because it would be obvious to one of skill in the art to do such a thing on the basis of its suitability for a similar intended use (see MPEP 2144.07 that discussed that when the prior art recognizes something is suitable for a similar intended use/purpose, such a thing is obvious); and 2) there are advantages to doing such a thing, including that the legume derived water-soluble polysaccharides (i.e. soy and pea) are known to provide the benefit of enhancing the stability and increasing the emulsifying properties of said beverages, which shows a recognition in the prior art or drawn from a convincing line of reasoning based on established scientific principles or legal precedent, that beneficial result would have been produced by their combination (see MPEP 2144.II that states: The strongest rationale for combining references is a recognition, expressly or impliedly in the prior art or drawn from a convincing line of reasoning based on established scientific principles or legal precedent, that some advantage or expected beneficial result would have been produced by their combination).
Dependent claims
As for claim 2, Schmitt provides the use of 1 to 5 mM divalent cations in the composition (ab. and ref. clm. 1), which encompasses the claimed concentration of the divalent cation of 3 to 20 mM.
As for claims 3-4, as discussed above, the modified teaching, in Cheng, provides that the legume derived water-soluble polysaccharides, include water-soluble pea and soy types, as claimed.
Conclusion
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Patricia George
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 1793
/PATRICIA A GEORGE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1793
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