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 .
Continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) was filed after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.114 has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office Action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 12/17/2025 has been entered.
Claim status
The examiner acknowledged the amendment made to the claims on 12/17/2025.
Claims 7 and 10 are pending in the application. Claims 1-3 and 8-9 are currently cancelled. Claims 4-6 are previously cancelled. Claim 7 is currently amended. Claim 10 is newly presented. Claims 7 and 10 are hereby examined on the merits.
Examiner Note
Any objections and/or rejections that are made in the previous actions and are not repeated below, are hereby withdrawn.
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.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujioka CA 3130907 A1 (hereinafter referred to as Fujioka).
Regarding claim 7, Fujioka teaches a method comprising treating a plant milk such as chickpea milk with a protein deamidase to improve the dispersibility of the chickpea milk such that when the treated chickpea milk is added to a high temperature liquid beverage, it will not cause aggregation (0012-0013). Further, Fujioka teaches that the amount of enzyme added to the plant milk is in a range of 0.01- 500 U/g protein (0022). In the case where the claimed ranges “overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art” a prima facie case of obviousness exists. (MPEP 2144.05 I).
The language about “improving flavor of the chicken milk ” and “chickpea milk with improved flavor” as recited in the preamble and body of claim 7 recite the purpose of the claim, and the recited purpose does not result in a manipulative difference between the claim and prior art because the actual step recited in Fujioka and the instant claim are the same (e.g., treating chickpea milk with a protein deamidase) thus will necessarily provide the purpose of improving the flavor of the chickpea milk. Note that claim 7 does not quantify the degree of flavor improvement.
Further, where prior art teaches the same step of treating a chickpea milk with a protein deamidase the dose of which overlaps with the range as the instant claim, it logically follow that prior art method will result in a chickpea with improved flavor, e.g., enhanced sharpness of aftertaste or enhanced richness of initial taste. Note that claim 7 does not quantify the degree that the richness of initial taste is increased or the degree that the sharpness of aftertaste is reduced. See MPEP 2112.01 I, where the claimed and prior art products are identical or substantially identical in structure or composition, or are produced by identical or substantially identical processes, a prima facie case of either anticipation or obviousness has been established. In re Best, 562 F.2d 1252, 1255, 195 USPQ 430, 433 (CCPA 1977).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujioka CA3130907 A1 (hereinafter referred to as Fujioka) as applied to claim 1 above, further in view of Gugger US Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0309732 A1 (cited in the IDS submitted 03/16/2023, hereinafter referred to as Gugger).
Regarding claim 10, Fujioka as recited above teaches treating the chickpea milk with a protein deamidase but is silent regarding treating the chickpea milk with an alpha-amylase.
Gugger in the same field of endeavor teaches that chickpea belongs to legumes that have comparatively high starch, and further teaches a method of reducing the amount of the starch in a chickpea milk by treating the chickpea milk with an alpha-amylase (Abstract; 0006-0008; 0017-0018).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified Fujioka by including the step of treating the chickpea milk with an alpha-amylase so as to reduce the starch content of the chickpea milk.
Claims 7 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang CN107751390 A (cited in the IDS submitted 03/16/2023, hereinafter referred to as Wang) in view of Fujioka CA 3130907 A1 (hereinafter referred to as Fujioka).
Regarding claims 7 and 10, Wang teaches a method of making a chickpea milk comprising the step of soaking chickpea with water, grinding the soaked chickpea in water to obtain the chickpea milk, filtering the chickpea milk, treating the filtered chickpea milk with alpha-amylase, adding additive, and boiling (0017-0022).
Wang is silent regarding treating the chickpea milk with a protein deamidase or the dose thereof.
In the same field of endeavor, Fujioka teaches a method comprising treating a plant milk such as chickpea milk with a protein deamidase to improve the dispersibility of the chickpea milk such that when the treated chickpea milk is added to a high temperature liquid beverage, it will not cause aggregation (0012-0013). Fujioka teaches that the amount of protein deamidase added is in a range of 0.01- 500 U/g protein (0022).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified Wang by treating the chickpea milk of Wang with a protein deamidation and including the dose of enzyme as disclosed by Fujioka. Doing so would have delivered the benefit of improving the dispersabilty of the chickpea milk such that when the chickpea milk is added to a high temperature liquid beverage, it will not aggregate.
The dose of the enzyme as disclosed by prior art reasonably encompasses the amount of enzyme as recited in claim. In the case where the claimed ranges “overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art” a prima facie case of obviousness exists. (MPEP 2144.05 I).
The language about “improving flavor of the chicken milk ” and “chickpea milk with improved flavor” as recited in the preamble and body of claim 7 recite the purpose of the claim, and the recited purpose does not result in a manipulative difference between the claim and prior art because the actual step recited in Wang as modified by Fujioka and the instant claim are the same (e.g., treating chickpea milk with a protein deamidase) thus will necessarily provide the purpose of improving the flavor of the chickpea milk. Note that claim 7 does not quantify the degree of flavor improvement.
Further, where prior art teaches the same step of treating a chickpea milk with a protein deamidase the dose of which overlaps with the range as the instant claim, it logically follow that prior art method will result in a chickpea with improved flavor, e.g., enhanced sharpness of aftertaste or enhanced richness of initial taste. Note that claim 7 does not quantify the degree that the richness of initial taste is increased or the degree that the sharpness of aftertaste is reduced. See MPEP 2112.01 I, where the claimed and prior art products are identical or substantially identical in structure or composition, or are produced by identical or substantially identical processes, a prima facie case of either anticipation or obviousness has been established. In re Best, 562 F.2d 1252, 1255, 195 USPQ 430, 433 (CCPA 1977).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/17/2025 have been fully considered and the examiner’s response is shown below:
Applicant asserts criticality associated with the dose of at least 70 U protein deamidase per gram of protein on pages 3-4 of the Remarks. In particular, applicant argues that Example 1-3 and 4-6 have shown that enzyme dose falling within the broad range taught by prior art does not result in the same improvement in the capacity of richness of initial taste and sharpness of aftertaste (e.g., the examples have shown that 75.5 U of enzyme per gram of protein result in higher improvement as compared to 15 U of enzyme per gram of protein).
The assertion and the argument are considered but found unpersuasive because:
First, Table 2 of the instant specification has shown that examples that use 15 U of enzyme per gram of protein, although not as good as 75.5 U in improving richness and aftertaste, still result in the increased richness and reduced sharpness. To this end, attention is drawn to para. [0025] and [0033] of the instant specification, which recites that even an enzyme dose of as low as 0.1 U per gram of protein can lead to the flavor improvement.
Second, the showing as in the examples 4-6 is not commensurate in scope with the claim. For example, where the showing is about 75.5 U protein deamidase, the claim broadly recites 70 U or more. There is no adequate basis to conclude that a higher enzyme dose than 75.5 U/ g protein will lead to the same result. Further, it is noted that the examples use a protein glutaminase derived from Chryseobacterium proteolyticum (see Table 1 of the instant specification), however such a specific enzyme does not enable a generic “protein deamidase” as recited in claim 7 since one would not know if a protein glutaminase from other source would behave the same. Nor would one know if other protein deamidase such as protein asparaginase would have the same effect.
Conclusion
Pertinent art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure
Stiles WO 2020/150583A1, which teaches treating chickpea milk with a protein deamidase so as to decrease precipitation of the protein.
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/CHANGQING LI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1791