MILLER, Judge.
This is an appeal from the Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO") Board of Appeals ("board") affirming the examiner's rejection of claims 1-31 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Nutting et al. ("Nutting")1 in view of either Rector2 or Aeillo3 in application serial No. 742,094, filed November 16, 1976, for "Decaffeination Process," which is a continuation-in-part of application serial No. 605,717, filed August 18, 1975, which is a continuation-in-part of application serial No. 527,870, filed November 27, 1974. We reverse.
The invention relates to processes for preparing a decaffeinated vegetable material, such as coffee or tea, suitable for use in preparation of beverages. Prior art decaffeination techniques employ conventional, potentially toxic solvents, such as chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, and trichloroethylene, as the decaffeination medium. The problems with these solvents are that they can affect the flavor and remove desirable constituents of the beverage.
Appellants teach decaffeination with the use of edible fats. These fats may include soybean oil, corn oil, olive oil, coffee oil and others. Appellants accomplish decaffeination by contacting a caffeine-containing vegetable material, in either solid or aqueous extract form, with a liquid, water-immiscible fatty material. The fatty material removes caffeine from the vegetable material. The caffeine-laden fatty material is then separated from the decaffeinated vegetable material by centrifuging or decanting.
The following claims are exemplary:
1. A process for producing a decaffeinated vegetable material suitable for use in preparation of beverages, which comprises:
a) contacting a caffeine-containing vegetable material with a liquid, water-immiscible fatty material capable of removing caffeine therefrom;
b) maintaining said vegetable material and said fatty material in contact for a time sufficient to transfer caffeine from said vegetable material to said fatty material; and
c) separating the decaffeinated vegetable material from the caffeine-laden fatty material.
9. A process for producing a decaffeinated coffee or tea suitable for use in preparation of beverages, which comprises:
a) contacting caffeine-containing coffee or tea in extract or solid form with a liquid, water-immiscible fatty material capable of removing caffeine therefrom;
b) maintaining contact between said coffee or tea and said fatty material for a time sufficient to transfer a part of the caffeine from said coffee or tea to said fatty material;
c) separating the partially decaffeinated coffee or tea from the caffeine-laden fatty material;
d) contacting the partially decaffeinated coffee or tea with additional fatty material capable of removing caffeine therefrom;
e) maintaining contact between the partially decaffeinated coffee or tea and the additional fatty material for a time sufficient to transfer a further amount of caffeine from said partially decaffeinated coffee or tea to said additional fatty material; and
f) separating the further decaffeinated coffee or tea from the caffeine-laden additional fatty material.
21. A process for producing decaffeinated coffee suitable for use in preparation of beverages, which comprises:
a) extracting green coffee beans with water to transfer caffeine from the beans to the water
b) separating the caffeine-laden aqueous phase from the beans;
c) contacting the caffeine-laden aqueous phase with a liquid, water-immiscible fatty material capable of removing caffeine therefrom, selected from the group consisting of safflower oil, soybean oil, corn oil, peanut oil, coffee oil, triolein, olive oil, and lard;
d) maintaining the caffeine-laden aqueous phase and the liquid fatty material in contact for a time sufficient to transfer caffeine from the aqueous phase into the fatty material;
e) separating the caffeine-liberated aqueous phase from the caffeine-laden fatty material;
f) recycling the caffeine-liberated aqueous phase to the same or different green beans to remove caffeine from the beans; and
g) regenerating the caffeine-laden fatty material by removing caffeine therefrom to permit its reuse for decaffeination of aqueous extracts of green coffee beans.
Nutting discloses a conventional decaffeination process in which solvents, preferably trichloroethylene, are utilized to separate caffeine from the other coffee constituents. Prior to decaffeination, however, Nutting requires that a de-oiling step be performed to remove coffee oil from the materials undergoing the decaffeination process.
Rector discloses a method of coffee beverage preparation in which roasted coffee beans are ground with oil and pulverized to form a powder which is useful as a flavoring material. Rector states:
In practicing the present invention, the roasted coffee is first ground to any required fineness, even to the point of impalpability, in an edible oil or fat. By grinding the coffee in an oily medium a much finer product results than when the coffee is ground alone. The fatty medium should preferably be a neutral oil, i. e., an odorless and tasteless oil, thereby avoiding any undesirable odor or taste in the product. If desired, the grinding medium may consist of an oil charged with coffee substance, such as oil expressed from coffee.
The ground paste is next placed in a press and the surplus of oil removed. Any desirable percentage of oil may be left in the product, but it is preferable to allow from twelve to fifteen percent to remain, as this is the usual percentage of fat in the coffee bean.
The cake which is left in the press may then be reduced to a powder in an ordinary pulverizer. This powder, being very finely divided, is largely soluble and can be used for making coffee, as a flavoring material, or for many other uses. It can be combined with malted or powdered milk and sugar to form a prepared beverage. The insoluble portion of the coffee is so finely ground that it remains in suspension in the beverage in an unobjectionable form.
The oil which was expressed from the paste is now used for grinding a fresh batch of coffee, and is again expressed from the paste. This cyclic process is carried on as long as desired. Successive extractions leave the oil more heavily charged with the aromatic and stimulative elements of the coffee. Thus the process becomes more efficient as it continues, until a point is reached where the oil is practically pure coffee oil, and it then continues at maximum efficiency. If it is preferred not to use all the expressed oil to grind other batches of fresh coffee, it may be used as a flavoring constituent in itself, the oil having a fine, fresh, coffee flavor without any of the fibrous constituents of the coffee bean.
The paste produced by grinding the coffee in oil may also be used as a flavoring material or in producing confections. Emphasis supplied.
Aeillo discusses the lipoid theory of narcotics and disputes that theory on the basis that it rests upon an inaccurate experimental premise. Aeillo states:
The lipoid theory of the narcotics was formulated more than twenty years ago by Hans Horst Meyer and by Overton simultaneously and independently.
It is based, not on the special chemical properties of the compounds and their narcotic effects, but on the physical-chemical behavior of the narcotic compounds, i. e. their solubility in fatty oils, in particular distribution coefficients of these compounds between water and oil. According to it, the effect of the narcotic agents depends on the distribution coefficients between oil and water. The tables prepared by Hans Horst Meyer of threshold values of the narcotic agents and the distribution coefficients between oil and water show the threshold values of narcotic substances inversely proportional to the distribution coefficient....
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... One must argue against the experimental part of the theory, on which, after all, the entire theory rests, that it is built upon a conclusion by analogy rather than an experiment which corresponds to the actual conditions. In fact, Baum's experiments, which Loewe already criticized as being partially inadequate, refer, not to the behavior of the narcotics and to the partition coefficients between blood and brain lipoids, but to the solubility ratio of the narcotics between water and oil. Now water is an entirely different solvent than blood or serum, as is known from many facts.... On the other hand ... it is not the fatty masses in the body that the narcotics act on, but the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Also, the water-insoluble fat differs greatly from the complicated mixture of the diverse lipoids....
Our statements are intended only to show, to begin with, that to infer from the system water-oil to the system blood-lipoid mixture-protein is contrary to the facts, and that the actual situation is quite different.
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It was of great interest to us to investigate the behavior of another group of compounds; in particular we wanted to see if the group of diuretics is lipoid-soluble, what the distribution coefficient is between oil and water, and what differences result when one phase, water, is replaced by serum. With the experience we had thus gained, it was logical to extend this modification, water replaced by serum, to some soporifics.... It was of great interest to see how such exciting and diuretic substances, which certainly are not narcotics but their physiological antagonists, behave in the test arrangement of Hans Horst
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