Appeal No. 1997-2510
Application No. 07/868,539
region is complementary to a second region, when the two regions are
positioned in an anti-parallel configuration, as required by the claimed invention.
In addition, there is nothing in Vickers that suggests the antisense
oligonucleotides, set forth in Table 1, are capable of forming any type of
secondary structure. In contrast, as set forth in appellant’s specification (page 9)
“[t]he complementary strands forming the majority of the DNA fragment are
hydrogen bonded as indicated by the dotted lines to form the structure shown” in
Figures 1-3. Nevertheless, to the extent that Vickers’ sequences would form a
stem-loop structure, each of the antisense oligonucleotides illustrated in Table 1
of Vickers, contains mismatched sequences. We note, the “UCU” “buldge” on
the left side of the constructs in Figure 3 of Vickers. This “buldge” is reproduced
as “AGA” in Vickers’ antisense oligonucleotides. See for example, the
sequences corresponding to compound # 1308, 1307 and 1972, illustrated in
Table 1, page 3365 of Vickers. According, to the claimed invention, the second
region is complementary to the first region, therefore there are no mismatched
sequences in the stem portion (e.g., the first and second region) of appellant’s
claimed DNA fragment.
We are also not persuaded by the examiner’s arguments concerning the
suggestion to combine Vickers with Sakata. According to the examiner (Answer,
page 29) Sakata illustrates the “state-of-the art, and, what is obvious for one of
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