Appeal No. 93-3369
Application 07/344,179
that one of ordinary skill in the art would consider them obvious
alternatives for the devices taught by the prior art. Diamond
makes no mention of a solid support for detection of the labeled
polynucleotide either inside the microfuge collection tube or
outside of the microfuge tube. With regard to Diekmann and
Graas, not only do they not mention a solid support in the
sleeve, their centrifugation sleeve tubes seem to be a
particularly unlikely place for the addition of a solid support.
The rejections rely on Liotta to further provide the
teaching of a second solid phase support for the sleeve of a
diagnostic apparatus. Liotta teaches a dry, layered test strip
and its advantages. See the paragraph bridging columns 1 and 2
of Liotta. The Examiner has failed to present any reason why one
of ordinary skill in the art would separate the juxtaposed layers
of Liotta’s test strip into separate microfuge tubes or separate
centrifugation tubes used by Diamond, or Diekmann and Graas,
respectively, to arrive at the claimed device. The function of
the Liotta device is to provide a one-step, one piece, device
usable for both contact of test materials with sample and
positive or negative result detection. Separation of the
reaction layers from the colorimetric detection layer is not
contemplated and it would defeat the simplification they were
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