Appeal No. 1998-2047
Application No. 08/400,559
Coley-Smith teaches that onion plants are susceptible to infection with the
soil fungus S. cepivorum, which causes white rot disease (page 459). Coley-
Smith teaches that S. cepivorum infection of onion can be prevented by treating
onion seeds with the fungicide iprodione (“Little infection of roots was observed
with iprodione-treated seeds,” page 462). Coley-Smith also suggests that other
fungicides should be tested for activity against S. cepivorum (“a search should be
made amongst existing fungicides for materials with similar or perhaps even
greater effects,” page 465).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the
time the invention was made to treat onion seeds, as taught by Coley-Smith, with
a seed dressing comprising cyproconazole (at a rate of 0.5 g per kilogram of
seeds) and an agriculturally acceptable diluent, as taught by Schaub (col. 6, lines
15-20; col. 7, lines 55-65), in order to prevent or minimize the infection of the
germinated seeds by S. cepivorum. Motivation to combine the references is
provided by Coley-Smith, who explicitly suggests that the disclosed method
should be practiced with fungicides other than iprodione (page 465) and by
Schaub, who teaches that cyproconazole is effective against a variety of
phytopathogenic fungi (col. 5, lines 35-60).
The skilled artisan would reasonably have expected that cyproconazole
would be effective against S. cepivorum in view of Schaub’s teaching that
cyproconazole is effective against a variety of phytopathogenic fungi (col. 5, lines
35-60). An additional basis for expecting successful treatment of S. cepivorum is
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