Appeal No. 2003-1805 Page 3
Application No. 09/079,892
The present invention involves human carbohydrate metabolism enzymes
referred to by appellants as “CARM.” Specification, page 5. As seen from claims 7, 25,
and 33 reproduced above, the claims under review in this appeal involve the
polynucleotide sequence as shown in SEQ ID NO:4 which is said to code for CARM-1.
Id., page 19, lines 14 through 20. As explained:
CARM-1 has chemical and structural similarity with human glutamine:
fructose-6-phosphate amidotransferase (GI 183082). In particular,
CARM-1 and human glutamine: fructose-6-phosphate amidotransferase
share 78% identity. A fragment of SEQ ID NO:4 from about nucleotide
243 to about nucleotide 260 is useful, for example, as a hybridization
probe. Northern analysis shows the expression of this sequence in
various libraries, at least 51% of which are immortalized or cancerous and
at least 46% of which involve immune response. Of particular note is the
expression of CARM-1 in gastrointestinal, male and female reproductive,
and nervous tissues.
Id., page 20, lines 4 through 11.
Discussion
1. Written description.
The examiner considers that claims 33 through 37 do not comply with the written
description requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, since:
The specification defines an ‘allelic sequence’ (see page 10) as an
alternative form of the gene which may result from at least one mutation in
the nucleic acid sequence and may result in altered mRNAs or in
polypeptides whose structure or function may or may not be altered and
that any given natural or recombinant gene may have none, one or many,
allelic forms, and that common mutational changes which give rise to
allelic variants are generally ascribed to natural deletions, additions,
substitutions of nucleotides each of which may occur alone or in
combination with the others one or more times in a given sequence. This
definition does not provide any specific information about the structure of
naturally occurring (alleles) variants of SEQ ID NO:4 (i.e. where are the
regions within which mutations are likely to occur) nor discloses any
function for naturally occurring variants. There is no description of the
mutational sites that exist in nature, and there is no description of how the
structure of SEQ ID NO:4 relates to the structure of any naturally
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