Appeal No. 2006-2575
Application No. 10/025,567
3. WRITTEN DESCRIPTION
Claims 1, 3, 5-7, and 12-29 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first
paragraph, “as containing subject matter which was not described in the
specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the
relevant art that the inventor, at the time the application was filed, had
possession of the claimed invention.” (Answer 7.)
The Examiner urges that the claim term “immunogen” encompasses
peptide or protein antigens for which no amino acid structure has been
provided. (Id. at 8.) The Examiner also urges that “[g]iven the infinite
number of undisclosed colony-forming immunogen[s], the said undisclosed
colony[-]forming immunogen has not been adequately described. Since the
immunogen is not adequately described, the binding specificity of microbial
adherence inhibitor in the form of IgY including IgA and IgM to that
undisclosed immunogen is not adequately described.” (Id.)
The Examiner concludes that because the Specification describes
IgY-containing microbial inhibitor only from birds inoculated with
P. anaerobius, C. sticklandii, C. aminophilum, E. coli serogroup 0157: H7,
Salmonella, and Campylobacter, “one of skill in the art would reasonably
conclude that the disclosure fails to provide a representative number of
species of colony-forming immunogens, in turn, the microbial inhibitor to
said undisclosed colony-forming immunogens. Thus, Applicant was not in
possession of the claimed genus.” (Id.)
Appellants respond initially to the written description rejection by
reiterating their arguments regarding the enablement rejection. (Br. 17.)
Appellants then argue that the Specification explains how the IgY, IgA, and
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