Appeal No. 94-2062
Application 07/870,841
It is reasonable to expect that compound (II)
[sic, compound (III) in appellants’ claim 19] would
preferentially react with a primary amino group
particularly in situations where A is a bulky
peptidyl residue, for example. The Patchett
reference appears to support the examiner’s holding
that one of ordinary skill in the art would have
expected a primary amino group to be more reactive
with a sulfonyloxy group containing compound than a
secondary amino group.
This argument is not relevant to appellants’ claimed
method. The “A” group referred to by the examiner does not
appear in appellants’ claims, and appellants’ diamino
compound has no secondary amino group.
For the above reasons, we conclude that the examiner has
not carried his burden of establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness of appellants’ claimed invention over Alhede.
The examiner relies upon Patchett as evidence that
reaction of a formamidinesulfonic acid with a compound’s
primary amino groups is preferred over reaction with secondary
amino groups (answer, pages 5 and 7). This argument is not
well taken because the diamino compound in appellants’ claims
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