Cargill Inc v. Bunge Loders Croklaan USA LLC

1. Case Identification

• Case #: IPR2024-01360
• Patent #: 7,645,473
• Filed: August 28, 2024
• Petitioner(s): Cargill, Incorporated
• Patent Owner(s): Bunge Loders Croklaan USA, LLC
• Challenged Claims: 1, 6-9, 11-24

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Vegetable Fat Composition
• Brief Description: The ’473 patent discloses vegetable fat compositions, comprising specific percentages of various triglycerides, that are suitable for use in baking and confectionery applications. The compositions are produced via interesterification of vegetable oils to achieve desired physical properties while being essentially free of trans fatty acids.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Petrauskaite and General Knowledge - Claims 1, 6-9, 11-17, and 20 are obvious over Petrauskaite in view of knowledge generally available in the art.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Petrauskaite (a 1998 journal article on trans-free fats), supplemented by general knowledge regarding fatty acid compositions found in references such as Neff and Deffense.
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Petrauskaite discloses all limitations of the challenged claims. Petrauskaite describes interesterified fat blends of palm stearin and soybean oil and reports their triglyceride compositions in molar percent (mol%). Petitioner asserted that a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA), using publicly available data on the fatty acid compositions of these oils (from Neff, Deffense) and standard chemical principles, could readily and predictably convert Petrauskaite’s mol% values into the weight percent (wt%) values recited in claim 1. The detailed calculations provided in the petition showed that Petrauskaite’s disclosed 40:60 and 50:50 blends of palm stearin/soybean oil meet the claimed wt% ranges for SSS, SUS, SSU, SU2, and U3 triglycerides. Further, Petrauskaite was argued to directly disclose the solid fat content (N-values) and low trans-fatty acid levels required by the dependent claims.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine the teachings of Petrauskaite with general knowledge of fat chemistry to fully characterize the properties of the disclosed blends. Converting from a disclosed unit (mol%) to a different, common unit (wt%) was presented as a routine and predictable step for a food scientist seeking to utilize or understand the prior art composition.
  • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success in performing these conversions because the underlying principles of interesterification, random fatty acid distribution, and the molecular weights of fatty acids were all well-understood and experimentally confirmed in the art.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Petrauskaite and Idris - Claims 18, 19, and 21-24 are obvious over Petrauskaite in view of Idris.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Petrauskaite (a 1998 journal article) and Idris (a 1989 journal article on shortenings).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground addressed claims directed to methods of making baked goods and icings. Petitioner argued that Petrauskaite, as established in Ground 1, teaches the base fat composition of claim 1, which is suitable for use as a shortening. Idris was argued to supply the remaining limitations by teaching the application of a similar shortening (a 50:50 blend of palm stearin and soybean oil) in specific food formulations. Idris explicitly described methods for producing a Madeira cake and an icing composition, thereby teaching the steps of preparing a mixture, baking, and incorporating the shortening into a bakery or icing composition as claimed.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA developing food products with Petrauskaite's improved trans-free shortening would be motivated to consult prior art like Idris. Idris operated in the same technical field and provided established, successful recipes and techniques for using shortenings with the same constituent oils. The combination represented the application of a known ingredient (Petrauskaite’s fat blend) in a known process (Idris’s baking/icing methods) to achieve a predictable result.
  • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have reasonably expected success because Idris demonstrated that shortenings based on palm stearin and soybean oil blends exhibited "good baking performance" and creaming properties. Substituting Petrauskaite’s functionally similar, interesterified blend into Idris’s proven formulations would predictably yield a functional baked good or confection.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

• "S2U" / "SU2": Petitioner argued that, based on the patent’s specification, these terms refer to a genus of triglycerides. For example, "S2U" was construed to encompass combined SSU (saturated-saturated-unsaturated) and SUS (saturated-unsaturated-saturated) triglycerides.
• "N10" / "N20" / "N30": These terms were construed as the solid fat content of an unstabilized fat, measured via pulse NMR at the specified temperature (10°C, 20°C, or 30°C), according to the explicit definition provided in the specification.
• "essentially free of trans fatty acid residues": Based on examples in the patent, this term was construed to mean a composition containing less than 1% by weight of trans fatty acid residues.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

• Petitioner argued that discretionary denial under 35 U.S.C. §325(d) would be inappropriate. The petition asserted that none of the primary references (Petrauskaite, Idris) or the supplementary references used to show general knowledge were the same as or substantially the same as the art previously considered by the examiner during the original prosecution of the ’473 patent.

6. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requested institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1, 6-9, and 11-24 of the ’473 patent as unpatentable.