Appeal No. 2002-0253
Application No. 09/093,450
at 279-280. Therefore, as we understand the appellants’ argument the only issue is
whether one skilled in the art would envision the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis from
the disclosure of arthritis? To that end, we find that since the teaching of a method of
treating “arthritis” is in conjunction with “other autoimmune disorders” one skilled in the
art would have understood the teachings to be directed to rheumatoid arthritis, an
autoimmune disorder. Moreover, we note that the prior art of record shows that other
investigators in the field were treating rheumatoid arthritis using TNF antagonists.
See, e.g., the Le patent. Thus, contrary to the appellants’ argument we find that one of
ordinary skill in the art would have read the teachings of Aggarwal as being directed to
a method of treating rheumatoid arthritis.
As to the appellants’ contention that Aggarwal’s disclosure requires a selection
from a number of TNF antagonists, we point out that the patent only discloses the use
of two (2) types of TNF antagonists; i.e., TNF" and TNF$ antagonists. Claim 15 is
directed to a method of treating rheumatoid arthritis which comprises the administration
of therapeutically-effective amounts of any TNF" antagonist. To that end, we direct
attention to column 7, lines 24-39, which discloses the treatment of [rheumatoid]
arthritis using therapeutically-effective amounts of a TNF" antagonist. We find this
teaching sufficient to anticipate the claimed invention. Nevertheless, we point out that
the claim is open to the administration of both the TNF" and the TNF$ antagonist
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