Soy Fiber Food Additive Too Obvious for Patent, Appeals Court Confirms

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed a Patent
Trial and Appeal Board ruling that a method of enzymatic hydrolysis of
soy fiber for use in creating food additives is not patentable because it
would have been obvious in light of previous inventions. In re Urbanski,
No. 15-1272 (Fed. Cir., order entered January 8, 2016). The plaintiffs
challenged the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s denial of a patent
for their technique of creating food additives from soy fiber, which the
examiner found to be “readily combinable” from two prior inventions.

The Federal Circuit agreed with the examiner’s and appeals board’s
determinations that a person of ordinary skill would have expected that
adjusting the process as the plaintiffs did would have yielded the results
they reached. Accordingly, the court affirmed the prior dismissal.

Issue 590