Appeal No. 1999-1181
Application 08/480,332
From a reading of the examiner’s rejection, it is unclear how the examiner proposes
to combine the references of Woodle and Kawasaki. In Woodle, the active therapeutic
agent (i.e., drug to be delivered to the bloodstream) is encapsulated inside of the
liposome. A target ligand is disclosed in Woodle as being attached to the outer surface of
the liposome itself, not the distal ends of the PEG chains. These ligands are merely
targets to bind the liposome to a specific cell or tissue so as to deliver the drug
encapsulated within. These ligands are not the therapeutic drugs themselves and are not
attached to the distal ends of the PEG chains, as in the instant invention.
It is not clear from a reading of Woodle why one of ordinary skill in the art would
have found it obvious to attach an active therapeutic agent on the distal end of the PEG
chains when Woodle contains no suggestion to do so. Since the active therapeutic agent
(i.e., drug) taught by Woodle is located inside of the liposome, by combining the inhibitory
peptide-PEG conjugate taught by Kawasaki with the liposome of Woodle, one would
logically end up with the peptide-PEG conjugate inside of the liposome, which is not the
instant invention. The claims on appeal require covalently attaching a polypeptide or
polysaccharide effector molecule to the distal ends of the PEG chains on the liposome.
Nowhere does Woodle suggest coupling any agent to the distal ends of the PEG chains.
For these reasons, we reverse the examiner’s rejections as they are based upon
Woodle and Kawasaki, with or without Handley.
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