Appeal No. 95-4481
Application No. 07/911,667
examiner’s proposed reason for combining references amounts to a restatement of the
objectives of appellant’s invention and does not stem from the cited prior art.
Even assuming arguendo that the combination of references were proper,
nevertheless, the combined disclosures of these references are insufficient to support the
examiner’s conclusion that the claimed method of detecting double-stranded DNA-specific
IgG would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Suffice it to say that Litman and Pope have little or nothing in common with the
claimed invention. At best, Litman teaches that IgG, as a class, can be detected by solid
phase immunoassay. Pope was cited to show immobilization of IgG on an anti-Fc column,
but actually shows immobilization of only the Fc portion of the antibody (which does not
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exhibit antigen specificity).
Emlen, which discloses a solid phase assay for detection of antibodies specific for
dsDNA, would appear to be the most relevant of the references relied upon. In the last
paragraph of the Answer, after addressing appellant’s arguments, the examiner contends
that the claimed invention is simply the Emlen assay with the order of binding reversed. In
our view, this is the strongest argument presented in support of the examiner’s conclusion
3 Pope’s starting material was papain-digested IgG. Papain digestion cleaves IgG
into Fc and Fab fragments; only the Fc fragments would be retained on Pope’s anti-Fc
column. See Methods, lines 9 through 11. Also see Illustrated Dictionary of Immunology,
R.E. Lewis, CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, FL, 1995, “papain hydrolysis,” page 227. (Copy
enclosed).
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