Appeal No. 1998-2088
Application 08/372,712
Examiner’s Answer (Id., page 7).2,3 Thus, claims 17-21 are before us for review in
this appeal.
Claim 18 is representative and is reproduced below:
18. A method of inhibiting the TNF-a activity in a patient in need thereof
comprising administering to said patient an effective antiinflammatory
amount of a compound of claims 1 or 2.
The examiner has not relied upon any references.
This merits panel relies on the following references, already made of record
in the PTO-892 attachment to Paper No.17, mailed 31 October 1995:
Fisher et al. (Fisher), “Influence of an anti-tumor necrosis factor monoclonal antibody
on cytokine levels in patients with sepsis,” Critical Care Medicine, Vol. 21, No. 3,
pp. 318-327 (March 1993).
Wispé et al. (Wispé), “Tumor Necrosis Factor-Alpha inhibits Expression of
Pulmonary Surfactant Protein,” Journal of Clinical Investigation, Vol. 86, pp. 1954-
1960 (December 1990.)
2 During a telephone interview between the Examiner and Appellants’ representative on July
21, 1997, it was decided that the Examiner would add a new grounds of rejection for claims 17 and
19-21 since they have the same language as claim 18 which was found to be indefinite by the
Examiner. Appellants appear to have rejected the Examiner’s offer of withdrawing the final rejection
or canceling the claims by Examiner’s amendment and allowing the application as alternative
courses of action.
3 There seems to be some confusion in Appellants’ Reply Brief (paper 23) as to which
claims are pending in the application. In section 3 of the Reply Brief, Appellants indicate that claim
18 is appealed and that claims 17-21 have been rejected for the same reasons as applied to claim
18. Appellants state that claims 1, 2, 4-7, 9-11 and 13-36 are pending. Id., page 3. In section 7,
Appellants also state that “[n]ew claims 37-41 are not under appeal.” Id., page 5. These claims are
not under appeal because they are not pending in the application. It appears that Appellants’ Reply
Brief was accompanied by an amendment filed December 2, 1997, in which new claims 37-41 were
presented. In a letter mailed February 2, 1998 (paper 24), Appellants were advised that the Reply
Brief was entered and noted but that the amendment filed December 2, 1997, was not entered
2
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