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 a response to applicant’s communication submitted June 10, 2026, wherein claims 11-18 are canceled. This application is a national stage application of PCT/US2022/035630, filed June 30, 2022, which claims benefit of provisional application 63/216666, filed June 30, 2021.
Claims 1-10 are pending in this application.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s provisional election without traverse of group I, drawn to a method of extracting corn fiber gum from corn bran, filed June 10, 2026, is acknowledged. Claims 11-18 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
Claims 1-10 are pending in this application and examined on the merits herein.
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.
Claim 4 is 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. This claim includes the limitation, “an organic solvent, such as hexane.” The exemplary language “such as” renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the limitation after the claim is a required feature of the claimed invention or merely exemplary.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Jiang et al. (Reference included with PTO-892)
Independent claim 1 is directed to a process comprising steps of extracting corn bran in an alkaline aqueous medium at elevated temperature to extract corn fiber gum from the corn bran, separating solid and liquid fractions, acidifying the liquid fraction, further separating out solids from said fraction, and then drying the resulting separated liquid fraction. For the sake of interpreting the present claims, arabinoxylan obtained from corn is reasonably considered to fall within the scope of “corn fiber gum,” as illustrated by p. 2 lines 11-18 of the specification as originally filed.
Jiang et al. discloses a method for extracting arabinoxylan from corn ban, comprising mixing the corn bran with sodium hydroxide, microwave heating to 70OC, further treating with ultrasound, centrifugation, treatment of the centrifugation supernatant with HCl to pH 4.5, further centrifugation of the acidified solution, then further concentration (removal of water solvent, or drying) before finally precipitating the arabinoxylan. (p. 453 section 2.2) This process would reasonably be considered to anticipate the same process described in claim 1.
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 2 and 6-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Doner et al. (US patent 6147206, cited in PTO-1449)
Independent claim 2 claims a process comprising steps of extracting corn bran in an alkaline aqueous medium at elevated temperature to extract corn fiber gum from the corn bran, treating the dispersion with an amylase to hydrolyze starch in the gum, acidifying the dispersion, separating out solids from said dispersion to produce a liquid phase, and then drying the resulting separated liquid fraction. For the sake of interpreting the present claims, arabinoxylan obtained from corn is reasonably considered to fall within the scope of “corn fiber gum,” as illustrated by p. 2 lines 11-18 of the specification as originally filed.
Doner et al. discloses a process for producing corn fiber gum by mixing corn fiber with an alkaline solution, treating the alkaline solution with peroxide, and separating out the insoluble fractions to yield corn fiber gum. (column 3 lines 25-36) A specific example given is example 1 in columns 8-9, wherein corn fiber is treated with amylase to remove starch, then treated with a combination of 240g NaOH and 222g Ca(OH)2, which is a weight ratio of about 1.08:1. The mixture was then heated to 95OC, for an hour, then acidified to pH 4.5 and cooled to room temperature. The cooled dispersion was then separated by centrifugation and optionally further clarified by ultrafiltration, and the resulting aqueous solution was then concentrated and spray dried.
This process infringes the process described in present claim 2, with the exception that the destarching step is carried out before the extraction, rather than after the extraction. However, Doner et al. further discloses that the destarching step does not have to be prior to extraction, but can actually be carried out at any point in the process, though destarching before filtration is preferred. (column 4 lines 50-57) Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to carry out the destarching at a different point in the process, for example after extraction but before the centrifugation/filtration steps. One of ordinary skill in the art would have seen the disclosure as suggesting performing this amylase treatment at a different point in the process.
Regarding claims 6 and 8, example 1 of Doner et al. already describes using a combination of sodium and calcium hydroxide for the alkaline treatment. Regarding claims 9 and 10, example 1 already describes centrifugation and spray drying. Regarding claim 7, while example 1 describes a process using a mixture of sodium hydroxide and calcium hydroxide, column 5 lines 63-64 states that the alkaline agent can be “sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, calcium hydroxide, and/or magnesium hydroxide.” Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to use sodium hydroxide as the sole base in the extraction as the reference suggests that any of these bases can be used individually.
Therefore the invention taken as a whole is prima facie obvious.
Claims 3-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Doner et al. as applied to claims 2 and 6-10 above, and further in view of Kale et al. (Reference included with PTO-892)
The disclosure of Doner et al. is discussed above. Doner et al. does not disclose performing a de-oiling step prior to extraction. However, Kale et al. discloses a similar process for alkali extraction of arabinoxylan from corn bran. (p. 122 left column third paragraph) this includes a preliminary de-fatting step by treating with hexane. (p. 122 section 2.1) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to perform such a defatting step on the corn bran being used in the method of Doner et al. One of ordinary skill in the art would have considered this to be obvious because Kale et al. suggests using this step in a similar process for the same purpose.
Regarding claim 5, example 1 of Doner et al. describes drying just before the alkaline treatment process.
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.
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/ANDREA OLSON/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1693 6/23/2026
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