Appeal No. 2003-1745 3
Application No. 09/859,614
Claims 13 through 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being
unpatentable over Robl in view of Lis and Wyss.
OPINION
We have carefully considered all of the arguments advanced by the appellants and
the examiner and agree with the examiner for the reasons stated in the Answer and those
set forth herein that the rejection of claims 13 through 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is
well founded. Accordingly, we affirm the rejection.
As an initial matter, it is the appellants’ position that, “[a]ll of claims 13 to 16
stand together.” See Brief, page 2. Accordingly, we select claim 13, the sole independent
claim as representative of the claimed subject matter and limit our consideration thereto.
See 37 CFR §1.192(c)(7)(2002).
The Rejection under § 103(a)
There is no dispute that the primary reference to Robl discloses omapatrilat which is
both an angiotensin converting enzyme, ACE inhibitor, and an inhibitor of neutral
endopeptidase for the treatment of hypertension. See Brief, page 3 and the Office action
of June 19, 2002, page 3. The examiner thereafter relies upon the secondary references
to Lis and Wyss for their disclosure of a correlation between hypertension and cognitive
impairment to show that it would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in
the art to have utilized omapatrilat for the treatment or prevention of vascular dementia
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