Appeal No. 1997-3275
Application No. 07/963,329
On the record before us, the examiner has not met the initial burden of establishing
why the prior art relied on would have led one of ordinary skill in this art to arrive at the
claimed method of promoting the survival of photoreceptors in a mammal by administering
thereto an effective dose of Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1. Critical to the examiner's case is
the consideration of Ocrant. While Ocrant may be said to establish the likelihood that there
are receptors capable of binding IGF-1 in the area of the eye where the photoreceptors
are located, the reference does not describe any benefit or pharmacological effect
resulting from this binding. Appellants do not dispute that such receptors are present in the
photoreceptors; but urge that this "does not in any way suggest that such binding will
provide the claimed result." (Brief, page 16). We agree. The examiner relies on the
remaining references, which are not explicitly related to photoreceptors, to demonstrate
that the IGF-1 type compounds have growth and regeneration effects on neurons. The
examiner, thus, urges that one would have expected to observe the same effect when IGF-
1 is administered to photoreceptors which are also neurons. (Answer, page 10). However,
the examiner's principal reference would suggest otherwise.
We read Ocrant to suggest a detectable or noticeable difference in the
photoreceptors when compared to other neurons found elsewhere in the body.
Specifically, Ocrant begins his analysis by noting that "Insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) are
peptide mitogens, structurally related to insulin, whose biological actions in the CNS are
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