Appeal 2007-0320
Application 09/945,339
but their ability to proliferate must be reduced by more than 90% in order to
substantially reduce their ability to cause graft versus host disease.
The Rejection
The Examiner rejected claims 1-6 and 15-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Waller2 in view of Sykes.3
Waller describes “a method of transplanting hematopoietic system
reconstituting cells from a donor to an antigenically matched or unmatched,
genetically unrelated recipient or an antigenically unmatched, genetically
related recipient with successful engraftment in the absence of GvHD”
(Waller, col. 2, l. 66 to col. 3, l. 3 (emphasis added)). Waller’s method
comprises “administering to the recipient, prior to the administration of the
hematopoietic . . . cells, an amount of mononuclear cells which are treated so
as to render them incapable of proliferating and causing a lethal GvHD
effect, but which are effective in enhancing subsequent engraftment of the
hematopoietic . . . cells in the recipient” (id. at col. 3, ll. 8-14). The
mononuclear cells can be treated, “for example by exposure to a source of
ionizing radiation” (id. at col. 4, ll. 43-44), or “with cytotoxic
chemotherapeutic drugs” (id. at 4, ll. 66-67) including fludarabine (id. at 5, l.
11).
On first impression, Waller’s disclosure seems plain enough: “The
mononuclear cells are ‘treated so as to render them incapable of
proliferating and causing a lethal GvHD effect’” (Waller, col. 4, ll. 40-41
2 U.S. Patent 5,800,539 to Waller, issued September 1, 1998.
3 WO 99/25367, International Patent Application of Sykes, published
May 27, 1999.
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013