Appeal No. 1997-2830
Application 08/440,362
would have led that individual to combine the relevant teachings of the references to arrive
at the claimed invention. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598
(Fed. Cir. 1988). With this as background, we analyze the prior art applied by the
examiner in the rejection of the claims on appeal.
In the present case, the examiner indicates that Boynton establishes evidence of
the administration of chromic tripicolinate for reducing hyperglycemia and stabilizing the
level of serum glucose in a human by oral or parenteral administration. The examiner
relies on a general teaching in Boynton that chromic tripicolinate is non-toxic up to a dose
of 156 gm to support for his position that it would be obvious to administer chromic
tripicolinate in a dosage range of between about 1,000 and 10,000 micrograms per day of
chromium as synthetic chromic tripicolinate, as claimed (Claim 1). Answer, page 2.
We find the examiner’s reliance upon the toxicity values for chromic tripicolinate
described in Boynton to support the obviousness of the claimed invention to be misplaced.
A fair reading of Boynton is that chromic tripicolinate can be administered to reduce
hyperglycemia and stabilize the level of serum glucose in a dosage of about 10 to about
500 micrograms a day. Boynton, column 4, lines 44-68. Boynton also suggests that
lesser amounts of chromic tripicolinate may be required for uses such as the prophylactic
function of preventing or reducing serum lipids, total serum cholesterol and LDL
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