Appeal No. 1999-1271
Application No. 08/467,883
However, the process that the examiner alleges to be made obvious by
the prior art is different from the instantly claimed process. The examiner argues
that it would have been obvious
to combine the purification processes of Kuo et al., Loeb et al. [sic],
and Munson et al. into a single isolation scheme. . . . [I]t would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to take the
proteins from the same type of sample because one of ordinary skill
in the art would know that once P1 were extracted from the paste,
P2 and P6 would remain in the paste so that one could go back to
the original sample to extract the others.
Examiner’s Answer, page 5. Thus, the examiner argues that the prior art would
have made it obvious to extract P1 from Haemophilus cell paste, then separate
the P2 and P6 remaining in the paste. In the claimed process, however, P2 is
isolated first, leaving P1 and P6 in the cell paste. Thus, the process that is
alleged to be obvious is different from the claimed process.
Even assuming that the examiner intended to say that it would have been
obvious to extract P2 first, as required by the claims, we do not agree that the
cited references render the claimed process prima facie obvious. In the claimed
process, P2 is selectively extracted from Haemophilus cell paste to produce a
supernatant containing P2 and a precipitate containing P1 and P6. The cited
references suggest that each of P1, P2, and P6 can be isolated from
Haemophilus cells. However, the examiner has pointed to nothing in the
references that would have motivated a skilled artisan to first carry out the P2
isolation disclosed by Kuo, then apply the P1 isolation process disclosed by
Loeb.
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