Appeal No. 2006-3253 Page 4
Application No. 10/276,547
The specification includes several prophetic examples and one example
(Example 15) that appears to have been actually carried out.1 That example reports the
“[t]issue-specific expression of Dopamine-like GPCR.” Page 75, line 3. See Table 1
(page 77). The specification reports: “Relative[ly] high expression is detected in
Alzheimer’s brain compared to normal brain and in cancer tissue compared to the
corresponding normal tissue.” Page 77, lines 5-7.
Discussion
1. Claims
Claims 102 and 104 are pending and on appeal, and read as follows:
102. A method of screening for candidate therapeutic agents, comprising the
steps of:
contacting a protein comprising the amino acid sequence shown in SEQ
ID NO:2 with a test compound, wherein either the test compound or the
protein comprises a detectable label;
assaying for binding between the protein and the test compound; and
identifying a test compound that binds to the protein as a candidate
therapeutic agent that may be useful for regulating activity of the protein.
104. The method of claim 102 wherein either the test compound or the protein
is bound to a solid support.
The claims are directed to a method of assaying test compounds to determine
whether they bind to the human DA-like GPCR of SEQ ID NO:2, where binding of the
compound to the protein is said to “identify[ ] a test compound . . . as a candidate
therapeutic agent that may be useful for regulating activity of the protein.”
1 Example 15 switches between present tense and past tense, so it is not completely clear that it
represents a working, rather than prophetic, example. Since the example includes what appear to be
actual data, however, we will presume that the experiment described was actually carried out.
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