Appeal No. 1996-1080
Application No. 07/869,111
rejection of claim 1 on appeal (Brief, pages 8-12).
Appellants submit that the Declaration evidence establishes,
at the minimum, that it is difficult to deoximate the
compounds of Faubl where the oxime is methyl, isopropyl or
butyl substituted, when using sodium hydrogen sulfite as the
deoximating agent (Brief, page 11, see the specification,
sentence bridging pages 11-12).
The Watanabe I Declaration, in Experiments 4 and 6, and
the Watanabe II Declaration, in Experiments 9 and 10, attempt
to show that deoximation of alkyl-substituted 9-oxime
erythromycin derivatives by the “ordinary method” of using
sodium hydrogen sulfite is “difficult” (see pages 8-9,
paragraph (3), of the Watanabe II Declaration). In every
Experiment of these Declarations, some of the starting
substituted oxime is converted to an unnamed product (e.g.,
see Experiment 4 of the Watanabe I Declaration, where 400 mg
of starting material is reacted with only 320 mg of the
starting material recovered after reaction). However, no
evidence has been presented on this record regarding the ease
or difficulty in deoximating the claimed alkenyl-substituted
oximes. Therefore, on this record, there is no basis for
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