Appeal No. 1999-0031
Application No. 08/168,438
inactivating agent and any photoproducts thereof are removed from the blood by
passing the treated blood over a column of “macroporous polymeric beads,” or
biobeads. See the specification, page 10, lines 4-18:
[t]he term “biobeads refers to neural [sic, neutral?] macroporous
polymeric beads with a high surface area for adsorbing organics
from aqueous solutions. Biobeads can vary in their hydrophilic and
hydrophobic polarities. The range of believed useful properties of
biobeads for the present invention is as follows: polarity (non-polar
to intermediate polarity); Dipole Moment (0.1 to 3.0); bead size (30
to 2000 µm); average pore diameter (45 to 300 angstroms); bead
surface area (150 to 1,600 sq. meters/gram dry bead). It has been
found that biobeads available from Biorad Laboratories . . . under
the name Macro-Prep® t-butyl HIC function satisfactorily to remove
methylene blue and methylene blue photoproducts Azure A and B.
Discussion
1. The rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).
The examiner rejected claims 5, 7, 9, 15, 17, 19, 20, 27, and 29-33 as
anticipated by Mohr. Appellants have not presented separate arguments with
respect to these claims, so the claims stand or fall together.1 See In re Kaslow,
707 F.2d 1366, 1376, 217 USPQ 1089, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (“Since the claims
are not separately argued, they all stand or fa ll together.”). Therefore, we will
limit our consideration to claim 31.
Claim 31 is directed to a process of treating a body fluid, such as a blood
product, comprising adding a “viral inactivating agent” to the fluid, then passing
the mixture through a column containing “macroporous polymeric beads” to
1 Appellants do present a separate argument with respect to claims 16 and 26, see the Appeal
Brief, page 13, but these claims are not rejected under § 102(b).
4
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