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 .
Detailed Action
This application is a national stage application of PCT/KR2022/005170, filed April 11, 2022, which claims priority to foreign application KR10-2021-00572333, filed March 5, 2021. Claims 1-4 are pending in this application and examined on the merits herein.
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, 3, and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Soetaert et al. (US pre-grant publication 2016/0168612, cited in PTO-1449) in view of Bailande biochemical Co. (Foreign patent publication CN106282264, Reference included with PTO-1449, English machine translation included with PTO-892, all citations herein are to the English machine translation)
Independent claim 1 is directed to a process for purifying sophorolipids from a starting material which is a culture fluid of a genus Candida fungus. As recited in paragraph 5 of the present specification, Candida bonbicola is considered to be such a fungus. The process involves steps of ultrafiltering the sophorolipid precipitate from the culture, adding and then removing ethanol and activated carbon to remove impurities, and then adding water and adjusting the pH to a value between 5 and 7.
Soetaert et al. discloses a method of producing bolaamphilic glycolipids form a yeast. (p. 1 paragraphs 10-11) In a preferred embodiment the yeast is Starmerella (Candida) bombicola. (p. 2 paragraph 13) Sotaert et al. further discloses using ultrafiltration to purify the glycolipids, particularly sequential ultrafiltration. (p. 2 paragraph 20, p. 5 paragraph 71) The bolaform glycolipid can be a sophorolipid. (p. 2 paragraph 22) In a specific example (ex. 7, p. 10) a sophorolipid containing mixture was subjected to 30 kDa and then 5 kDa ultrafiltration. The resulting sophorolipids were then rendered into an aqueous solution and NaOH was added to adjust the pH for stability testing. (p. 10 paragraph 121) The stable range was seen to be pH 2-6.5, which substantially overlaps the claimed range of 5-7. (p. 10 table 4) Therefore Soetaert discloses steps (1) and (3) but does not describe a step of adsorbing in ethanol and activated carbon.
However, Bailande discloses a method of purifying sophorolipids form fermentation broth wherein ethanol is added to the fermentation broth, followed by activated carbon, followed by the removal of the activated carbon and the evaporation of the ethanol. (step 9 on pp. 3-4 of the English translation) It would therefore have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add such a step to the method described by Soetaert et al. to further purify the sophorolipids purified therein, thereby resulting an a process infringing claims 1 and 4.
Regarding claim 3, step 9 described by Bailande describes adding 1% activated charcoal to culture broth to which an equal volume of 95% ethanol is added. This results in about 2.1 parts activated charcoal per 100 parts ethanol. However, one of ordinary skill in the art, considering this disclosure, would have reasonably found it to be obvious to attempt to further optimize the amount of activated charcoal to use in any adsorption step to ensure optimal removal of contaminants from the sophorolipid-containing solution. For example, the aforementioned process described by Bailande utilizes two sequential treatments with activated carbon for 0.5h each. The use of two separate steps adds to the total time required of the process, and replacing it would a single step using a greater amount of activated carbon could potentially speed up the process, resulting in improved efficiency.
For these reasons the invention taken as a whole is prima facie obvious.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Soetaert et al. in view of Bailande as applied to claims 1, 3, and 4 above, and further in view of Isa et al. (Reference included with PTO-892)
The disclosures of Soetaert et al. and Bailande are discussed above. Soetaert et al. further discloses that a ultrafiltration with a 1 kDa MWCO membrane can be used to separate acidic sophorolipids from carbohydrates. (p. 10 paragraph 122) Soetaert et al. in view of Bailande et al. does not specifically describe a method wherein one of the ultrafiltration steps is a 10 MWCO ultrafiltration.
However, Isa et al. discloses a method for isolating a different biosurfactant by two-step ultrafiltration. (p. 52 right column second paragraph) different ultrafiltration membranes with different MWCO were tested including 30 and 10 kDa. (p. 52 right column section 2.2.1) In vow of this disclosure, one of ordinary skill in the art would have considered the molecular weight cutoff of the ultrafiltration membranes to be a result-effective variable, and would have performed appropriate experimentation to determine the optimal MWCO values to use in the two steps of the ultrafiltration described by Soetaert et al.
For these reasons the invention taken as a whole is prima facie obvious.
Conclusion
No claims are allowed in this action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDREA OLSON whose telephone number is (571)272-9051. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 6am-3:00pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Scarlett Y Goon can be reached at 571-270-5241. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ANDREA OLSON/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1693 2/17/2026