Appeal No. 1995-3965
Application No. 07/719,005
method of Wang et al. to develop a test for the presence of these bacteria in the oil
field.” The examiner further finds (Answer, bridging sentence, pages 6-7) that a
person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Hitzman
with Wang since Hitzman discloses “the presence of microorganisms, particularly
sulfate-reducing bacterial, in the flood water causes serious problems of plugging of
the oil bearing formation and corrosion of injection and downhole equipment….”
The examiner relies (Answer, page 7) on Kimmel to teach that “‘[i]ndividual
recombinants within libraries can be screened for homology with a nucleic acid
sequence … [i]n addition, populations can be screened as mixtures of
recombinants….’”
Therefore the examiner concludes (id.) that it “would have been prima facie
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to use
the multiple nucleic acid screening of Kimmel with the method of Wang and Hitzman
for the expected benefit of constructing a method of detecting multiple nucleic acid
sequences in a single experiment.”
With regard to Wang and Hitzman, appellants argue (Brief, page 14) that the
references are “fundamentally different from the present invention because” neither
reference alone or in combination teach or suggest “the use of a reverse gene
probe for the detection of more than one microorganism with a single hybridization.”
Furthermore, while appellants agree (Brief, page 15) that “Kimmel clearly teaches
that populations can be screened as mixtures of recombinants”, appellants find that
“Kimmel does not teach that such screening can be done with a single
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