Ex Parte Berta et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 25, 2016

12198255 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 25, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/198,255 08/26/2008
27752 7590 07/27/2016
THE PROCTER & GAMBLE COMPANY
Global IP Services
Central Building, C9
One Procter and Gamble Plaza
CINCINNATI, OH 45202
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
James Albert Berta
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www .uspto.gov
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
11096Q 3752
EXAMINER
LIU, TRACY
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
1612
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/27/2016 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address( es):
centraldocket.im @pg.com
pair_pg@firsttofile.com
mayer.jk@pg.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JAMES ALBERT BERTA, DAVID SCOTT HOWE,
DAVID MICHAEL FARREN, STEVEN PAUL MILLER,
SHANE MICHAEL DE LA HARPE,
VOLKER BERNHARD DEISTER, and JEFF TIMOTHY
CULLINANE 1
Appeal2014-008482
Application 12/198,255
Technology Center 1600
Before ULRIKE W. JENKS, JOHN G. NEW, and JOHN E. SCHNEIDER,
Administrative Patent Judges.
NEW, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
1 Appellants state the real party-in-interest is the Proctor & Gamble Company
of Cincinnati, Ohio. App. Br. 1.
Appeal2014-008482
Application 12/198,255
SUMMARY
Appellants file this appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the
Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1 and 2 as unpatentable under 35
U.S.C. §103(a) as being obvious over Todd (US 2003/0213529 Al,
November 20, 2003) ("Todd").
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b)
We AFFIRM.
NATURE OF THE CLAIMED INVENTION
Appellants' invention is directed to a low loss liquid processing
system used for manufacturing personal care and cleaning compositions, in
particular oral care compositions such as dentifrice, mouthrinse and denture
care products. Specifically, the present manufacturing process provides
faster variant turnaround times, shorter clean-up times between variants,
significant material waste reduction and smaller effluent volumes than those
of typical batch systems. Abstract.
REPRESENTATIVE CLAIM
Claim 1 is representative of the claims on appeal, and recites:
1. A semi-continuous process for manufacturing oral care
compositions comprising:
(a) providing a mixing tank having a mixing device and a mixing region:
(b) preparing one or more base formulations comprising from about 40%
to about 99% by weight of the oral care composition, to form one or
more base stream( s) for further processing;
( c) storing said one or more base formulations;
2
Appeal2014-008482
Application 12/198,255
( d) preparing one or more additive formulations selected from
predominantly aqueous formulation(s) comprising greater than 50%
water, essentially non-aqueous formulation(s) comprising less than 5%
water and organic formulation comprising organic components, to form
additive streams for combining with said one or more base stream( s );
( e) storing said one or more additive formulations;
( t) discharging said one or more base stream( s) and said one or more
additive stream(s) into the mixing region;
(g) contacting and mixing in said mixing region using the mixing device
said one or more base stream(s) and said one or more additive stream(s)
to form an oral care composition; and
(h) discharging said oral care composition from the mixing region into
one or a plurality of containers.
App. Br. 8.
ISSUES i\.ND i\.Ni\L YSIS
We adopt the Examiner's findings and conclusions that Appellants'
claims are prima facie obvious over the combined cited prior art. With
respect to the arguments raised by Appellants on appeal, we herein adopt as
our own the Examiner's responses presented in the Answer.
We additionally note that Appellants' Specification defines "mixing"
very broadly: "The mixing technology may be any number of mixing
devices including but not limited to static mixer, dynamic mixer, rotor stator,
pin mill, extruder." Spec. 7, 11. 30-31. We agree with the Examiner's
findings that such mixing technology is taught by the cited prior art.
3
Appeal2014-008482
Application 12/198,255
DECISION
The Examiner's rejection of claims 1 and 2 as unpatentable under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l ). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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