Appeal No. 2001-2661 Page 3
Application No. 09/164,350
Deliberations
Our deliberations in this matter have included evaluation and review of the
following materials: (1) the instant specification, including all of the claims on appeal;
(2) applicants' main Brief (Paper No. 14) and the Reply Brief (Paper No. 16); (3) the
Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 15); (4) the above-cited prior art reference relied on by
the examiner; (5) the Popescu declaration, filed under the provisions of 37 CFR
§ 1.132, executed May 19, 2000; and (6) the Dufour publication, relied on by the
applicants and made of record in Paper No. 10, received September 8, 2000.1
On consideration of the record, including the above-listed materials, we reverse
the examiner's prior art rejections.
Discussion
The central question here is whether Popescu describes or suggests the method
sought to be patented in claim 1 for producing multilamellar coalescence vesicles
(MLCVs) containing a biologically active compound. We answer that question in the
negative.
Claim 1 recites a method for producing multilamellar coalescence vesicles
(MLCVs) containing a biologically active compound. The method comprises incubating
small unilamellar vesicles (SUVs), large unilamellar vesicles (LUVs) or a mixture thereof
with at least one biologically active compound in an aqueous solution at a temperature
1 Dufour et al. (Dufour), "Comparative Study of an Adenosine Triphosphatase
Trigger-Fused Lipid Vesicle and Other Vesicle Forms of Dimyristoylphosphatidyl-
choline," Biochemistry, Vol. 20, pp. 5576-5586 (1981)
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