Appeal No. 2001-1650
Application No. 08/898,085
It is also sometimes preferred to provide a timing zone or layer
which controls the rate of diffusion of the various reagents
incorporated into the multilayer test device through the various
layers thereof. Such timing zones or layers are incorporated into
the test device in order to provide controlled incubation times and
sequential reactions or to facilitate manufacture of the device by
preventing premature interaction of the reagents in the device.
(emphasis added.)
Thus, rather than being concerned with speed, Greenquist is concerned with
ensuring that the sample travels through the disclosed device at a controlled rate
of diffusion. One of ordinary skill practicing Greenquist would therefore not have
looked to references such as Ijsselmuiden or Clark, which are directed to
methods of performing assays wherein speed is desirable. Because Greenquist
focuses on the use of diffusion as the method of sample travel through the layers
of his device, we find nothing in the reference to indicate that the speed
advantage of a suction means on an immunoassay device, argued by the
examiner as being demonstrated by Ijsselmuiden and Clark, would have been
viewed by one of ordinary skill as an advantageous or desirable modification of
the device disclosed by Greenquist.
We note, as argued by the examiner (Examiner’s Answer, page 8), that
Ijsselmuiden discloses that reagent binding can be optimized by using a pump to
vary the rate of filtration (Ijsselmuiden, page 38). Again, however, we find no
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