Appeal No. 2001-1177 Page 14
Application No. 08/781,868
The examiner argues that all of the references teach that the various
agents are useful in treating damaged skin, and therefore it would have been
obvious to combine them. In our view, this characterization overstates the
breadth of the disclosures of Cavazza, Piazza, Finkenauer, Spector, and Otsu.
These references disclose certain agents to be useful in treating skin that is
suffering from a specific condition, not as useful in treating “damaged” skin
generally, regardless of the source of the damage. Importantly, none of these
references discloses the various agents to be useful in treating age-damaged
skin, and therefore they would not have provided the requisite motivation to
combine their respective agents with the glutathione and selenoamino acids
taught by N’Guyen and Burke.
The rejection of claims 36 and 39-42 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.
D. The method claims
The examiner rejected all of the method claims (claims 45-54) as obvious
over the combined disclosures of N’Guyen, Burke, Levin, Cavazza, Piazza,
Finkenauer, Spector, and Otsu. The examiner reviewed the disclosures of each
of the cited references and concluded that
[e]ach of these references discloses methods of treating free
radical damaged skin by applying compositions comprising one or
more of the recited ingredients. These methods provide for the
treatment of damaged skin, and/or the prevention of further
damage to the skin. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art to have used compositions comprising glutathione
and selenoamino acids, as well as [the other recited agents] for the
repair of free radical damaged skin, as these ingredients have been
shown to be important and/or effective for the healing of free radical
damaged skin, and other types of injuries or damage. Combination
of these ingredients for use in the method of treatment would be
Page: Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007