Appeal No. 2002-0796 Page 4
Application No. 09/110,994
consensus peptide sequences are then identified by searching
protein sequence databases.
Id. at 4.
According to the specification:
Successful screening of a random peptide library will result
in the identification of one or more consensus sequences that
exhibit affinity to the ligand. Proteins that are already characterized
and contain this sequence will be identifiable by a search of the
sequence data banks such as GenBank and SWISS-Prot. Some of
the identified proteins will contain the consensus sequence in a
conformation that will not bind the ligand; these are false positives.
Other proteins may display the sequence in a manner that does
bind to the ligand. These ligand-binding proteins can exhibit
binding constants that may or may not fall within the range of
physiological relevance. False negatives will occur for all proteins
not yet sequenced and placed in the data bases; however, the
number of false negatives will decrease substantially as the work of
the Human Genome Project continues. Other false negatives will
occur when the libraries that are screened do not adequately mimic
the environment of the ligand binding site in a protein.
Id. at 12.
DISCUSSION
Claims 1-18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious
over the combination of Petrenko and Ivanenkov or Sparks.
As an initial note, we acknowledge appellants’ grouping of the claims and
arguments that the groups do not stand or fall together. See Appeal Brief, page
3. Thus, claim 1 will be representative of group I, claims 1, 2, 4-5, 10-13 and
16-18; claim 6 will be representative of group II, claims 3 and 6; claim 9 will be
representative of group III, claims 7-9; and claim 14 will be representative of
group IV, claims 14 and 15.
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