Ex Parte STILL et al - Page 6


                 Appeal No. 2003-1722                                                         Page 6                    
                 Application No. 09/041,343                                                                             

                 fails to provide sufficient guidance regarding a specific, substantial and credible                    
                 use for a representative sample of such compounds.”  Id., page 7.                                      
                        As Appellants note, the initial burden of showing nonenablement is on the                       
                 examiner.  “[A] specification disclosure which contains a teaching of the manner                       
                 and process of making and using the invention in terms which correspond in                             
                 scope to those used in describing and defining the subject matter sought to be                         
                 patented must be taken as in compliance with the enabling requirement of the                           
                 first paragraph of § 112 unless there is reason to doubt the objective truth of the                    
                 statements contained therein which must be relied on for enabling support.”                            
                 In re Marzocchi, 439 F.2d 220, 223, 169 USPQ 367, 369 (CCPA 1971),                                     
                 emphasis in original.                                                                                  
                        We agree with Appellants that the examiner has not carried the initial                          
                 burden of showing nonenablement.  With regard to making the claimed                                    
                 receptors, the examiner relied heavily on the assertion that the claims do not                         
                 recite a structure for the receptors’ template.  See the Examiner’s Answer, pages                      
                 6-7.  As we have already concluded, however, the claims define the template of                         
                 the claimed receptors by means of specific, structural limitations:  the template is                   
                 defined as a “monocyclic nitrogen heterocycle”; i.e., a single, heterocyclic ring                      
                 containing at least one nitrogen atom.  The examiner has not adequately                                
                 explained why making the claimed receptors, as properly construed, would have                          
                 required undue experimentation.                                                                        
                        With regard to using the claimed receptors, the examiner cites the                              
                 unpredictability of the properties of compounds that have not yet been made, as                        





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