Appeal No. 2002-1299 Page 7
Application No. 08/962,740
1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Durbin in view of Jallat,
Leder and Todaro. As discussed supra claims 2-5 and 37 fall together with claim
1.
Claim 35:
According to appellants (Brief, page 6), the combination of references
relied upon “fail to suggest that viral tropism of such an immortalized cell line is
permissive for viral growth relative to that of the same cell line with wild type
alleles of Stat1. However, as the examiner explains (Answer, page 3), Stat1
is a gene product which interacts with interferon to change the viral
tropism of the cell containing the [sic] Stat1, i.e. places the cells in
an antiviral state. Therefore, a cell or cell line which does not
produce the Stat1 product, i.e. a null allele, would be more
susceptible to viral infection and replication thus being a good
vehicle for viral production.
Durbin (page 445, column 2) supports the examiner’s position, wherein Durbin
report, “virus replicated to extremely high titers in Stat1-/- animals while Stat1+/+
animals eliminated the virus within 2 days (Table 1).” Stated differently, Durbin
report that the viral tropism of the Stat1-/- animal was altered to be permissive for
viral growth relative to a Stat1+/+ animal (the same animal with wildtype alleles of
Stat1). There is no evidence of record that would suggest that a cell line derived
from a Stat1-/- animal would not be expected to exhibit the same degree of viral
tropism as the animal from which the cell was derived. Accordingly, we are not
persuaded by appellants’ argument. Therefore we affirm the rejection of claim
35 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Durbin in view of Jallat,
Leder and Todaro.
Claim 36:
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