Appeal No. 2006-2587 Page 6
Application No. 09/879,710
Obviousness:
The examiner relies on Meisner as discussed above. The examiner
notes, however, that Meisner does not teach that the S-alkylthiol is administered
intravenously (see e.g., appellants’ claim 7), or is selected from the group
consisting of, inter alia, S-methyl-L-cysteine (see e.g., appellants’ claim 3).
To make up for these deficiencies, the examiner relies on Joullié to teach
that S-methyl cysteine is well known to be injected into an animal for therapeutic
purposes, and Chem. Abst. to teach that S-methylcysteine and S-methyl-L-
cysteine are indeed the same compound. However, upon careful review of these
documents, we find ourselves in agreement with appellants in that neither
reference makes up for the deficiency in Meisner, whose composition requires
the presence of a precursor or stimulant of epinephrine or nor-epinephrine
production selected from tyrosine, and phenylalanine.
Accordingly, we reverse the rejection of claims 2-8 and 10 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Meisner, Joullié
and Chem. Abst.
OTHER ISSUES
Upon consideration of the evidence of record, we note that Joullié teaches
pharmaceutical compositions comprising S-methylcysteine, which are
administered orally and intravenously. See e.g., the LJ 1061 compositions at
column 11, lines 7-45. According to Joullié these compositions “may be
1 According to Joullié (column 10, line 32), LJ 106 is S-methylcysteine.
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