DETAILED ACTION
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 .
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, 5-7, 11, 12, 14, and 16-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Belten-Casteel et al, EP 2,045,319.
Belten-Casteel et al teach a coated detergent tablet comprising at least one film-forming material which may be a protein and cellulose or starch (claims 1-4), wherein the protein is 35% of the coating composition (¶19). The protein is gelatine which is an animal protein (¶15) and a plasticizer may be used in an amount as high as 40%, and the plasticizer may be water (¶29). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to coat a tablet with protein and starch as this combination is expressly taught by the reference.
With respect to the method, the powder may be applied by blowing or spraying onto the tablet (¶45), and the tablet is cooled, i.e. dried, by blowing air over the tablet (¶55).
Claims 1-9, 11-13, and 16-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pescetti, US 3,939,259.
Pescetti teaches particles that may be coated and pressed into tablets (see abstract and col. 1, lines 17-20). An example of such a coating comprises zein (examiner’s note: zein is a prolamin protein derived from corn gluten), ethyl cellulose, and an alcohol/water mixture (col. 5, example 1). As the zein and ethyl cellulose are both in an alcohol/water solution, there is ample water to satisfy present claim 7. The coating composition is distributed over the particles and dried (col. 5, lines 58-65). The examiner maintains it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to distribute the coating solution over particles using well-known methods, including spraying. It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to press the coated particles in example 1 into a tablet as this scenario is specifically contemplated by the reference.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10 and 15 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHARLES I BOYER whose telephone number is (571)272-1311. The examiner can normally be reached M-S 10-430.
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/CHARLES I BOYER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1761
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