One fascinating area of technology is food processing, and extruders in particular. The ability to effectively and efficiently process foods, such as pet food, helps all of those pet lovers take care of their furry friends without breaking the bank.

Sometimes, however, novel and inventive applications are assigned to examines intent on rejecting applications no matter the facts, as Mars learned with 14/776,338. The invention relates to an extruder system and method having an upstream barrel assembly connected with a satellite extruder assembly including a plurality of extruder barrels, each capable of producing an extruded product having specific characteristics through control of temperature, pressure, and addition of ingredients to a standard extruded material. See the Abstract. FIGs. 1 and 2 from the application are reproduced below illustrating the extruder barrels.

Specifically, the invention arose from the need to create several different products from a single extrudate. In other words, avoiding the need for individual runs was either expensive (with multiple sets of equipment, or slow (requiring serial production of the different products). However, dividing the dough from a single feed was also difficult - causing increased power requirements and possibly increasing the dough temperature too high. The claimed solution used a manifold to connect the primary extruder with a plurality of satellite extruders, along with special addition of hydration competitive components and a temperature or shear sensitive ingredient add to the satellite extruders.

Claim 2. A method of increasing starch gelatinization in a starchcontaining pet food product, comprising the steps of:
providing a multi-extrusion apparatus including: a primary extruder and a plurality of satellite extruders, each extruder having an axially rotatable screw within a barrel and configured to move material from a barrel inlet, through the barrel, and out through a barrel outlet, and a manifold connected to the primary extruder and the plurality of satellite extruders having an inlet and a plurality of separate outlets and operable to separate said material passing through the barrel outlet of said primary extruder into a plurality of separate material streams, each stream passing through one of said manifold outlets and into an inlet of one of the satellite extruders;
processing a starch-containing pet food mixture by extrusion through the primary extruder at a first temperature and first shear conditions, wherein the starch-containing pet food mixture does not include a hydration competitive components or a temperature or shear sensitive ingredient;
next passing the extruded starch-containing mixture through the manifold to form a plurality of separate material streams and directing each of the streams to an inlet of one of the satellite extruders;
adding a hydration competitive component and a temperature or shear sensitive ingredient to at least one of the satellite extruders and not to the primary extruder; and
processing the material streams, the hydration competitive component, and the temperature or shear sensitive ingredient by extrusion through the at least one of the satellite extruders at a second temperature that is lower than the first temperature and second shear conditions that are lower than the first shear conditions; wherein the bioavailability of the shear or temperature sensitive ingredient is increased in the final extrusion product in comparison to final extrusion products processed in a single extruder.

The Examiner rejected the invention as obvious in view of several reverences, however Mars argued that none had a manifold coupling a primary extruder to a plurality of satellite extruders as claimed in claim 2. Similarly, Mars argued that the cited art added the oil and additives (hydration competitive components) in the primary extruder, contrary to claim 2. It should be noted that claim 2 required the explicit negative limitation that the adding was to the satellite extruder and “not to the primary extruder.”

The examiner relied impermissible hindsight (as confirmed by the PTAB) to reconstruct the invention from the prior art, along with ignoring the negatively limitation because the claims used the transition phrase “comprising.” We’ve covered these exact types of arguments in some previous posts, so check those out for more details on these types of examiner errors.

What is interesting in this case is how the examiner supported the motivation to modify the references (none of which used a manifold between primary and satellite extruders to for multiple extrudate from a single mixture. Specifically, the examiner alleged that the reason to come to the claimed approach was “for the purposes of expanding the uses of the invention of the [cited art.]” Basically, that boils down to saying “it would be obvious to come to the invention for the purpose of modifying the prior art to achieve better performance like the invention.” You might think such circular reasoning is coming from a junior examiner, but this examiner seems to have at least 13 years of experience at the USPTO examining applications in the food arts. Further, even when Mars pointed out these errors in their appeal brief, two other supervisors signed off on maintaining the rejection.

The rejection is actually even worse than one might think based on the above, as the examiner further relied on optimization of ranges and several other conclusory modification. From the PTAB’s decision:

We further agree with the Appellant that the Examiner has not identified how the prior art teaches or suggests the claimed addition of temperature or shear sensitive ingredients, or hydration competitive components, only to the auxiliary/satellite extruders. Although the Examiner attempts to find the teaching of a primary extruder and a manifold between plural satellite extruders, we find the Examiner has pulled teachings from disparate product processing areas with dissimilar process considerations and has not provided sufficient reasoning for the selected combination....

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We agree with the Appellant and find that the Examiner’s rejection is based upon hindsight and speculation in an attempt to reconstruct the claimed invention. Additionally, the Examiner has not provided a persuasive line of reasoning or recognition in the food processing art to process the hydration competitive components and the shear sensitive ingredients components separately in two extruders in series or in a single extruder in multiple stages

Mars’ counsel handled the case well and illustrated a classic approach for attacking rejections based on hindsight - one cannot simply allege improepr hindsight but rather must walk through the facts of the case and illustrate each of the improper leaps made by the Examiner.