Appeal No. 1996-1080
Application No. 07/869,111
3 stands rejected under § 103 over Watanabe in combination
with Faubl and Kirk-Othmer (Answer, page 3).
The examiner finds, and appellants do not contest, that
the process of Watanabe differs in only one aspect from the
process recited in claim 3 on appeal, namely Watanabe teaches
that the protecting groups for the hydroxy substituents of the
erythromycin A derivative are esters while the process of
claim 3 uses trimethylsilyl as a protecting group (Answer,
page 4, and the Brief, pages 13 et seq.). Kirk-Othmer has
been applied by the examiner for the disclosure that
silylation is a conventional technique for protecting hydroxyl
groups (Answer, page 3). The examiner also states that Faubl
discloses that silylation is a conventional technique for
protection of a hydroxy substituent in erythromycin
derivatives (Id. at page 4). The examiner concludes that it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
protect hydroxy substituents on the erythromycin derivatives
of Watanabe by silylation instead of ester formation, as
taught by Kirk-Othmer and Faubl (Id.).
We adopt the prior merits panel’s finding that Kirk-
Othmer discloses “silylation of hydroxyl groups as a known
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007