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 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 8/4/26 has been entered.
Claims 1,7,11,22,24 are amended and claims 2-3,6,15-19,21 are cancelled. Claims 1,4-5,7-14,20,22-26 are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claim(s) 1,4-5,7-14,20,22-26 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over O’Dowd ( WO 2019/224299) in view of Salminen ( 2010/0203194), the article by Adriana Harlan “ Paleo Baking: Working with Binders” and Moore ( WO 2012/071491).
For claims 1,11, O’Dowd discloses a method for making a food product and food product obtained from the method. The method comprises the steps of premixing and blending dry ingredients being used to form a base mix, adding binding agent to the base mix, mixing until the base mix is coated with the binding agent, molding, cutting into pieces and drying the pieces. The binder is prepared by mixing dry binder and liquid binder. The binder comprises water, oil, seed or nut paste in a range of about 1-50%. The food product comprises 45-95% particulate and 5-55% binder. The particulates include seed such as flaxseeds which is defatted. Defatted flaxseed indicates the fat is removed. The particulates also includes ingredients such as nut, cereal and grain such as rice,amaranth, quinoa, dried pulses etc.. O’dowd discloses particulate food product also comprises puffed grain-based ingredients ( see page 2 lines 25-30, page 3 lines 10-15,page 5 lines 6-11, pages 6-7 7 lines,page 8 lines 21-33,pages 11-12, page 23)
For claims 10, 14 the food product is vegetarian and devoid of animal products because the particulates are selected vegetable sources ( see page 2 lines 25-30)
For claim 13, the food product is a snack bar. The food product can be shaped to a rectangle which is a bar ( see page 8 lines 16-20).
For claim 25, O’dowd discloses liquid binder ingredients means a binder recipe comprising one or more of water, oil and seed paste. ( see page 14 lines 15-20)
O’Dowd does not specifically disclose the amount of flaxseed, the particle size of the inclusions the amount of fiber of the flaxseed and the bulk density and fat content as in claims 1, 11, the fat content as in claims 22,24, the solid content as in claims 4, 26, the fiber content as in claims 5,20, the chickpea as in claims 8,20, the amount of sugar as in claims 9,12 and the density as in claims 7,22,24.
Salminen discloses defatted crushed flaxseed is formed by cold-pressing. It’s also possible to remove the oil from the seeds by solvent extraction. The defatted flaxseed presscake has a fat content from about 1 to 17%. Salminen discloses the flaxseed contains soluble fiber in the range of 20-40%. ( see paragraphs 0002, 0013)
Harlan teaches to use flaxseed as binding agent. Flaxseed meal is added to wet ingredients to form a gel or can be mixed with water or another liquid to replace egg. Flaxseed meal can also be mixed with dry ingredient to act as binder.
Moore discloses a method for making a quick-cook grain or pulse. The grains includes rice, quinoa and the pulses includes beans, chickpea. Moore discloses unpuffed grains and pulses have a bulk density of approximately 800 gram/L ( .8g/ml). Moore discloses the unpuffed grains and pulses can be lightly puffed to have a bulk density of 260-700g/L ( .26g/ml-.7g/ml) ( see paragraphs 21,22,25)
O’dowd discloses particles including grains such as quinoa, rice and pulse. As shown in Moore, unpuffed grains and pulse have a bulk density of .8g/ml. Thus, it’s obvious the particles disclosed in O’dowd have the bulk density as claimed. Moore also shows that the un-puffed grains and pulses can be slightly puffed to reduce the bulk density. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to puff the grain and pulse to reduce the bulk density when desiring to change the texture of the grain and pulse to have altered sensory taste. O’dowd disclose puffed grained can be included. Both the un-puffed density and puff density disclosed in Moore fall within the claimed range. O’Dowd discloses the particulates are used in amount of 45-95% and binder is used in the range of 5-55%. O’Dowd discloses on page 5 lines 32-35 that bind agent can be seed paste. As shown in Harlan, flaxseed is known to be used as binder. Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use flaxseed paste as the binding agent in O’Dowd . The use of flaxseed is totally compatible because O’Dowd discloses the use of flaxseed in the product. O’Dowd discloses to use defatted flaxseed. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to select any amount of fat remaining depending on the fat content desired. Since, O’Dowd discloses using defatted flaxseeds, it’s expected the fat content is low and one skilled in the art can readily determine the amount of fat remained depending on the fat content desired. Forming defatted flaxseed presscake to have a low fat content in the range of about 1-17% is known as shown in Salmien. It would have been obvious to use flaxseed presscake as disclosed in Salmien as a form of defatted flaxseed. Since the binder in O’Dowd contains water and it’s mixed with the base ingredients. It is obvious the flaxseed is hydrated in water. The solid content depends on the amount of flaxseed added and such amount can vary as explained above. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to select any fiber content depending on the fiber content wanted in the product. For example, it would have been obvious to select flaxseed as disclosed in Salmien containing 20-40% fiber. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to vary the size of the particulates depending on the textural feel desired. O’Dowd discloses on page 12 that the size of the dry particulate ingredients is limited only by the ability to process the materials and the texture of the snack. It would have been obvious to use chickpea when such taste is desired. This would have been an obvious matter of choice. O’Dowd discloses that the food product contains less than 10% sugar. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to omit sugar or add very little sugar when desiring a non-sweet product.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 8/4/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In the response, applicant argues the new limitation on the fat content. The argument is not persuasive. The fat content does not distinguish the claimed method from the prior art. New reference is used to show that the fat content claimed is known. Applicant argues the fat content is not an arbitrary optimization but instead defines a range associated with a significant and unexpected improvement is performance. Applicant points to the specification that shows full-fat flaxseed meal containing approximately 40% fat exhibited poor structural integrity versus 2% fat. However, the showing in the specification is not against the prior art because O’Dowd discloses the use of defatted flaxseeds which mean they do not contain full fat. Furthermore, even if one is not aware of any benefit of the defatted seeds with respect to structural integrity, it would still have been obvious to have varying amounts of fat depending on the fat content wanted in the product. It’s not necessary to show using an ingredient for the same purpose as applicant. It’s only required to show how such modification would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art even if for a completely different reason.
Applicant further argues that no teaching in Moore suggests that the disclosed bulk density should be selected for incorporation into a flaxseed presscake binder system, much less that such density would influence the structural integrity, cohesiveness or processing characteristics of a molded and dried food product. This argument is not persuasive because it lacks reasonable basis. The claims recite the density of the inclusions. There is no limitation correlating the density to flaxseed binder system or any property on integrity, cohesiveness, processing characteristics. The claims do not even recite any binding property to the flaxseed. O’dowd discloses particles including grains such as quinoa, rice and pulse. As shown in Moore, unpuffed grains and pulse have a bulk density of .8g/ml. Thus, it’s obvious the particles disclosed in O’dowd have the bulk density as claimed. Moore also shows that the un-puffed grains and pulses can be slightly puffed to reduce the bulk density. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to puff the grain and pulse to reduce the bulk density when desiring to change the texture of the grain and pulse to have altered sensory taste. O’dowd disclose puffed grained can be included. Both the un-puffed density and puff density disclosed in Moore fall within the claimed range.
Conclusion
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September 5, 2026
/LIEN T TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1793
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