Appeal No. 2000-1929
Application No. 08/019,297
experimentation, the specification still fails to enable the instant claims, because
it fails to adequately teach how to use the claimed antibodies. The specification
states that p25-specific antibodies “are liable of forming useful tools in the further
study of antigenic determinants of LAV viruses,” page 21, lines 37-39, but it
provides no guidance whatever on how to use antibodies specific to p15, p36,
p42, or p80. The specification admits to some doubt as to whether p15 is even a
viral protein. See page 8, lines 21-24 (“The viral origin of other proteins seen in
polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of purified virus is more difficult to assess. A
p15 protein could be seen after silver staining, but was much weaker after 35S-
methionine.”). The specification also discloses that the envelope proteins are not
useful in diagnosis. See page 9, lines 11-15 (“The envelope proteins of the virus
appeared as not detectable immunologically by the patients’ sera. However as
soon as the core proteins become exposed to said sera, the immunological
detection becomes possible.”).
Nowhere does the specification disclose using an antibody that binds an
HIV protein other than p25 for diagnosing AIDS or for anything else. For
example, the specification states at page 10, line 30 to page 11, line 2, that the
invention relates to a method of diagnosing AIDS comprising contacting patient
serum with “a virus extract as above defined.” In view of the previous disclosure
that patient serum does not contain antibodies to the envelope proteins p36, p42,
and p80, this disclosure would reasonably be understood to refer to extracts
containing viral p25 protein.
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