Appeal No. 2001-1654 Page 9
Application No. 08/445,584
David teaches that a sandwich immunoassay can be conducted by
simultaneously incubating an immobilized antibody, the antigen, and a labeled
antibody. See column 4, lines 50-61. David’s assay comprised only these three
components. See column 8, lines 6-25. David teaches that simultaneous
incubation is possible if both the immobilized antibody and the labeled antibody
are monoclonal antibodies, directed to different epitopes of the same antigen.
See id.
David does not provide guidance with respect to immunoassays in
general, nor does it suggest that all immunoassays can or should be conducted
by simultaneously incubating all the components in a single incubation. In
particular, David does not suggest converting Unger’s pretreatment with anti-IgG
into a simultaneous incubation of anti-IgG with the other assay components.
Schmitz also fails to suggest this limitation of the claimed method. The
examiner cited Schmitz simply to meet the limitation requiring use of a labeled
antigen. See the Examiner’s Answer, page 6 (“It would have been obvious . . . to
use the labeled antigen of Schmitz in the assay of Duermeyer.”). Schmitz does
not suggest simultaneous incubation of all the recited reagents.
We therefore conclude that the references cited by the examiner do not
teach or suggest all of the limitations of the instant claims. In particular, the
references do not suggest the limitation requiring simultaneous incubation of “a
substance which inhibits binding of immunoglobulin G to the solid phase and
inhibits binding of [the] . . . antigen to immunoglobulin G” with an immobilized
anti-IgX antibody, a sample, and an antigen-specific label.
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