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 office action is in reply to the application filed on 20 November 2023. Claim 9 is amended. Currently, claims 1-10 are pending.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Should applicant desire to obtain the benefit of foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d) prior to declaration of an interference, a certified English translation of the foreign application must be submitted in reply to this action. 37 CFR 41.154(b) and 41.202(e). Failure to provide a certified translation may result in no benefit being accorded for the non-English application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al. (Method for crystallization of branched chain amino acids with a sustainable cycle of ammonia, KR 2010152229, 2019) in view of Qingyang et al. (L-Tyrosine genetically engineer bacterium and L-tyrosine production method thereof, CN109266592, 2019).
Kim discloses a method that produces a branched chain amino acid crystal comprising the steps of: (a) mixing a reaction solution containing a branched chain amino acid crystal with ammonia to a pH of 9-12, as compared to claim 5, obtaining a solution in which the branched chain amino acid crystal is dissolved (b) the step of obtaining the concentrate, which is 1 to 2 times the concentration of the non-concentrated solution, as compared to claim 6, which crystallizes and includes the branched chain amino acid, as compared to claim 9, (c) the step of obtaining the mixing gas which includes the steam which becomes in the crystallization process and ammonia and where the pH of the solution is 5.5 to less than 8, as compared to claim 7, (d) the step of reusing the ammonia originating from the mixed gas, as compared to claim 8, performing steps (b) and (c) simultaneously or sequentially, as compared to claim 1. A prima facie case of obviousness necessarily exists when the prior art range overlaps or touches a claimed range, such as in the instant rejection. MPEP §2144.05
Kim does not, however, disclose the application of this method to aromatic amino acids.
Qingyang rectifies this deficiency by teaching about an invention to produce L-tyrosine, as compared to claim 2, an essential aromatic amino acid and a ketogenic and glucogenic amino acid that appears as white crystalline powder, with applications in pharmaceuticals as a raw material, food as a nutritional supplement, and live-stock feed. This invention utilizes a fermentation broth of genetically engineered bacterium where the L-tyrosine synthesis related gene in Escherichia coli is modified at the genetic level, including the blocking of the phenylalanine synthesis pathway, eliminating the feedback inhibition and transcriptional negative regulation of key enzymes, inducing the RNA polymerase derived from the T7 phage by introduction of a xylose promoter, and high-efficiency expression of another key enzyme gene in combination with the T7 start subsystem, as compared to claims 3 and 4. By utilizing this system, Qingyang describes obtaining 37.8 g/L of bacteria from 5 L of fermentation broth capable of producing L-tyrosine in a scalable, controllable, and economic manner.
As such, it would have been prima facie obvious, to a person of ordinary skill in the art, to apply the crystallization method of Kim to the invention of Qingyang, which produces L-tyrosine through a genetically engineered bacterium of E-Coli as a means to purify the resulting crude material to obtain crystalline L-tyrosine, as compared to claims 9 and 10.
Summary
Claims 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103.
Conclusion
No claims are allowed.
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/ALLEN CHAO/Examiner, Art Unit 1622
/JAMES H ALSTRUM-ACEVEDO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 1622