DETAILED CORRESPONDENCE
Status of Application
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
The claim set and remarks filed on 11/14/2025 are acknowledged.
Claims 1-12 and 14-19 are pending.
Response to Arguments
The remarks filed 11/14/2025 have been fully considered and are persuasive in overcome the prior art rejections. The previous rejections under 35 USC 103 are withdrawn.
Claims 1-12 and 14-19 are free of the art.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-11 and 15-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 1 is indefinite for reciting the phrase “oxidative byproduct compound”, which is unclear because the phrase does not provide reasonably certain boundaries. The specification defines these compounds to include those "generated during citrus oil extraction process due to excessive time at high temperature conditions." (p. 4, 1.32 to p.5, 1.6). Inclusion in this claimed class of compounds, therefore, depends on the process by which they are formed as opposed to any identifiable structural or compositional characteristic of the compound itself. As a result, a PHOSITA could not determine, based on analysis of the claimed composition, whether a given compound present in a citrus oil extract qualifies as an "oxidative byproduct compound." For example, cymene occurs naturally in citrus oil but may form under certain oxidative extraction conditions at high temperature. The claim provides no objective way to determine whether all p-cymene qualifies as an "oxidative byproduct compound" or only the p-cymene generated during an extraction process that includes "excessive time at high temperature conditions." As another example, citrus oil produced by cold-press extraction would necessarily contain 0 ppm "oxidative byproduct compounds," since the process does not use high temperature. This problem is compounded by use of the subjective and undefined terms "excessive time" and "high temperature," which lack any objective baseline as to how much time qualifies "excessive" and how much temperature qualifies as "high." With no clearly defined parameters, the determination of whether a compound was formed under such conditions is inherently uncertain. (See MPEP 2173.05(b)(I)-(IV)). While the specification identifies a list of exemplary compounds as preferred embodiments (p. 5, I. 4-6: cymene, t-p-menth-2-en-1-ol ...), this disclosure is illustrative rather than limiting and does not define the full scope of an "oxidative byproduct compound." Thus, the metes and bounds of the claimed class of compounds remains unclear. Accordingly, because the claimed <2500 ppm threshold cannot be reliably measured without first determining (based on undefined and unobservable process conditions) whether each constituent compound qualifies as an "oxidative byproduct compound," the scope of the claim is unclear and incapable of consistent and reproducible measurement. Therefore, the claim appears to be indefinite because its metes and bounds are indeterminable.
Claims 2-11 and 15-19 are included in this rejection because they do not correct for the defect of the claims from which they depend.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-11 and 15-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Claim 1 is drawn to a citrus oil extract comprising a reduced amount of oxidative byproduct compounds, wherein the amount of oxidative byproduct compounds is less than 2500ppm.
The broadest reasonable interpretation of the claimed compositions would be the material that is named, that is: citrus oil extract. Citrus oil extract is a naturally occurring product.
Thus, the compositions claimed in claim 1 is not markedly different from how the individual components in nature. It is not integrated into a practical application because nothing in claim 1 relies on or uses the exception. There is nothing significantly more than the judicial exception because there are no additional elements in the claim. With regard to claims 2-11 and 15-19 the enumeration of the amounts or additional products of nature do not make the combination of the products of nature markedly different from how they occur in nature.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, because the formulation at the broadest interpretation of the claim language is a mixture of products of nature comprising: citrus oil extract, which does not appear to change the biological/pharmacological functions, chemical/physical properties, or the structure/form of said ingredients. The term "oxidative byproduct compounds" is not clearly defined, the claim appears to encompass any citrus oil obtained by cold-press extraction. According to the specification, citrus oil prepared by cold-press extraction would necessarily lack oxidative byproduct compounds since it does not use high temperature. Without high temperature, the oxidative byproduct compounds cannot be produced, and there is no markedly different characteristic attributed to the citrus oil extract of claim 1. Because the claimed formulation does not have markedly different characteristics, it is a product of nature.
Conclusion
Claims 12 and 14 are allowed.
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/QUANGLONG N TRUONG/Examiner, Art Unit 1615
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