Appeal No. 2006-1226 Page 6
Application No. 10/272,382
acids may provide one or more products depending on the reaction conditions used in
their preparation.” Appeal Brief, page 4; Abdel-Monem declaration, ¶¶ 3 and 10.
Appellants provide three examples of zinc/glutamate complexes that could form “based
on the reaction conditions” (Appeal Brief, pages 5-6), implying that the Gramaccioli
complexes could be any of the three shown in the Appeal Brief.
We find this argument unpersuasive. As discussed above, the chemical formula
disclosed by the Gramaccioli references is consistent with a neutral complex of one
atom of either copper or zinc with one molecule of glutamate. The references do not
include in the chemical formula any additional counterion, nor do the disclosed formulas
indicate that two molecules of glutamate were complexed with each metal atom. Thus,
of the three exemplary structures set out in the Appeal Brief, only the one corresponding
to the claimed complex is consistent with the Gramaccioli chemical formulas.
The Gramaccioli references teach that the disclosed complexes were formed by
the simple process of mixing glutamic acid and a metal salt in aqueous solution and
evaporating the water. See Gramaccioli et al., page 594 (“[c]rystals were grown by
evaporation of an aqueous solution of glutamic acid and cupric nitrate”) and
Gramaccioli, page 600 (“[w]hite prismatic crystals of zinc glutamate dihydrate . . . form
on slow evaporation of an aqueous solution of zinc oxide in glutamic acid”).
Granted, this disclosure does not teach the skilled artisan precisely how much of
each component to add or how quickly to evaporate the solvent. But Appellants have
provided no evidence that the reference disclosures are inadequate to enable those
skilled in the art to make even a minute amount of a 1:1 neutral complex of glutamate
and either zinc or copper. The claims at issue are to a metal-amino acid complex per
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