Appeal No. 2000-0894
Application No. 08/437,884
We agree with Appellants that the examiner has not met his burden of
showing prima facie obviousness. The examiner argues that Hawiger teaches
“that carrier molecules such as albumin or immunoglobulin may be used to
increase the biological half-life of small molecules (i.e., make the molecules
longer acting,” Examiner’s Answer, pages 3-4, and therefore “[o]ne of ordinary
skill in the art at the time the invention was made would have been motivated to
conjugate nitric oxide to immunoglobulins because the resulting immuno-
conjugate would increase the plasma half-life of the nitric oxide moiety thereby
increasing its therapeutic efficacy. Id., page 4.
The examiner’s characterization of Hawiger, however, seriously overstates
its relevance to the instant claims. Although the examiner characterizes Hawiger
as teaching “that carrier molecules such as albumin or immunoglobulin may be
used to increase the biological half-life of small molecules,” the disclosure of
Hawiger is limited to conjugating peptides to a carrier protein such as albumin or
immunoglobulin. See, e.g., column 1, lines 19-25 (“The present invention relates
to . . . peptide conjugates.); column 2, lines 66-67 (“The conjugate is formed of
one or more peptides and a carrier molecule selected from the group consisting
of proteins . . .”); and column 3, lines 25-26 (“The carrier molecule is preferably
selected from a group consisting of . . . immunoglobulin.”). The examiner’s
attempt to broaden Hawiger’s teaching from the disclosed peptide/protein
conjugates to NO/protein conjugates is without evidentiary support. Therefore,
Hawiger cannot be relied on to supply the requisite motivation to combine the
cited references.
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