Appeal No. 2004-2343 Page 17
Application No. 09/772,520
seed “produced by crossing inbred corn plant I026458 with any second, distinct
inbred corn plant.”
As we understand it, based on this construction of claims 24-26, the
examiner is of the opinion that since the hybrids inherit only ½ of their diploid13
set of chromosomes from the plant of corn variety I026458, a person of skill in
the art would not have viewed the teachings of the specification as sufficient to
demonstrate that appellant was in possession of the genus of hybrid seeds and
plants encompassed by claims 24-26. According to the examiner (Answer, page
22), “[t]he fact that any hybrid plant will inherit half of its alleles from I026458 then
does not provide sufficient description of the morphological and physiological
characteristics expressed by the claimed hybrid plants.”
There is no doubt that the expressed gene products of a hybrid plant, e.g.,
the morphological and physiological traits, of I026458 and a non-I026458 corn
plant will depend on the combination of the genetic material inherited from both
parents. See Answer, page 23. Nevertheless, we disagree with the examiner’s
13 According to appellant’s specification (page 21), diploid means “a cell or organism having two
sets of chromosomes.”
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