Interference No. 104,733
Page No. 3
patentable from an opponent' s corresponding claims, a judgment of no interference-in
fact is appropriate.
Presently, UW is involved in this interference on the basis of UW claim 3, a
"species" claim. Lilly has requested that UW claim 1, a "genus" claim, be added to the
interference as corresponding to Count 1, the sole count in the interference.
UW's corresponding "species" claim does not anticipate or render obvious any of
Lilly's corresponding claims. Nor would UW's "genus" claim, should it correspond,
anticipate or render obvious any of Lilly's corresponding claims. Accordingly, UW's
species and genus claims are not an impediment to granting Lilly's corresponding
claims. As such, we grant UW's motion for no interference-in-fact.
The parties have entered into a vigorous dispute as to the relative merits of the
Board's precedential decision in Winter v. Fujita, 53 USPQ2d 1234 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int.
1999), As the questions presented in this interference do not require our reliance on
any issue resolved in Winter, we need not address the parties' comments regarding that
decision.
11. The Technology in Question
Generally, the technology involved in this interference relates to cDNA that
codes for a polypeptide ("protein") having human protein C activity. Protein C is a
zymogen, or inactive precursor, of a plasma serine protease, activated protein C
("APC"). Specifically, protein C is formed as a single-chain polypeptide that undergoes
processing to form a two-chain molecule having a heavy chain and a light chain that are
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