Appeal No. 1997-3275
Application No. 07/963,329
[s]ince the art teaches that IGF-1 generally produces a
beneficial effect and stimulates or enhances a number of
positive activities retinal neurons, and binds to photoreceptor
regions in particular, there is logically a reasonable
expectation that IGF-1 will produce the same effect in
photoreceptor neurons.
The examiner’s rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Lewis
Ocrant, Leschey, Yorek, and Fingl is based on the same reasoning.
We have already discussed the relevance of the teaching of Ocrant to the claimed
invention. Consideration of these two rejections requires only that we determine whether
the additional references, relied on by the examiner, provide that which we found missing
from Ocrant. In our opinion, they do not.
We note, initially, that both the claims and disclosure of Lewis are limited to
enhancing the survival of non-mitotic cholinergic neuronal cells in a mammal. However,
appellants have argued that the photoreceptors are not cholinergic (Brief, page 21) and at
page 18 of the response filed September 19, 1994 provided evidence in support of this
proposition. We find nothing in Lewis which would reasonably suggest that photoreceptors
fall within the scope of the invention claimed in that patent or described in the specification
of the patent.
The Leschey reference would appear relevant to the presently claimed invention
since it describes the stimulation of retinal pigment epithelium with IGF-1. However, in the
Abstract, Leschey states that "insulinlike growth factor-1, and insulin were weak or modest
15
Page: Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007