Appeal No. 2006-0484 Page 7
Application No. 09/657,729
necessarily indicates whether interaction has occurred and identifies the activity of the
luciferase under specific redox conditions. Thus, claims 1 and 51 reasonably appear to
read on the method disclosed by Higgins.
We affirm the rejection of claims 1 and 51 as anticipated by Higgins. Appellant
did not separately argue claims 2, 3, 5, 7, and 48-50. Therefore, those claims fall with
claim 1. See 37 CFR § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).
3. Anticipation by Weetall
The examiner rejected claims 1-4, 6-10, 12, 13, 47, 49, and 50 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as anticipated by Weetall.2 As the examiner pointed out, the methods
disclosed by Weetall meet all the limitations of claim 1. Example 1 is an immunoassay
method in which magnetic particles coupled to an antibody to T4 is combined with (1) a
sample of serum containing T4 and (2) T4 conjugated to glucose oxidase, on an
electrode array. Col. 3, lines 21-31. After ten minutes’ incubation, a glucose solution is
added and the reaction mixture is placed into an apparatus “designed to supply a +0.40
V potential between the working electrode and the counter electrode.” Col. 3, lines 34-
36 and 43-44.
In the apparatus, a magnet draws the magnetic beads, with attached antibody and
T4-glucose oxidase conjugate or T4, to the working electrode at the bottom of the well.
Then “[t]he voltage is applied and the current read in microamperes. . . . The more T4
present in the sample, the less enzyme [glucose oxidase] bound to the working electrode
through the first conjugate pair, and thus the less amperage.” Col. 3, lines 50-53.
2 Weetall, U.S. Patent 4,963,245, issued October 16, 1990.
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