Ex Parte RAJOPADHYE et al - Page 10

                 Appeal 2007-0856                                                                                      
                 Application 09/281,474                                                                                

                 elements in the fashion claimed by the patent at issue.”  KSR Int’l Co. v.                            
                 Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. __, __, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (2007).                                          
                        Here, we agree with the Examiner that it would have been obvious to                            
                 one of ordinary skill in the art to include the metal-ion binding backbones                           
                 described in Sharma as the metal binding domain of Palladino.  Although                               
                 Sharma describes including these metal-ion binding backbones in a structure                           
                 that conformationally fixes the biological-function domain, Appellants have                           
                 provided no evidence that including these metal-ion binding backbones to                              
                 label the non-RGD peptide of Palladino would cause the non-RGD peptide                                
                 to lose activity.  In addition, we agree with the Examiner that one of                                
                 ordinary skill in the art would have included a linking group, such as the                            
                 C(=O) depicted in Sharma, between the non-RGD peptide and the metal                                   
                 binding domain of Palladino in order to reduce potential steric hindrance.                            
                        With regard to claim 1, Appellants argue that Palladino “states that                           
                 ‘[i]n some embodiments, labels are attached by spacer arms of various                                 
                 lengths to reduce potential stearic hindrance.’ . . . However, the labels are                         
                 not chelators, and thus the limitation of ‘a linking group between the                                
                 targeting moiety and chelator’ cannot be met.”  (Br. 8.)  Appellants also                             
                 argue that the Examiner “failed to analyze how one skilled in the art, armed                          
                 with the Palladino reference’s single disclosure of ‘spacer arms’ (found                              
                 solely at col. 6, lines 54-55) would arrive at Appellants[’] claimed formula”                         
                 (id.).                                                                                                
                        We are not persuaded by these arguments.  First, we find that                                  
                 Palladino describes labels that are chelators for the reasons discussed above.                        
                 Second, although Palladino does not describe the structure of its spacer                              


                                                          10                                                           

Page:  Previous  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  Next

Last modified: September 9, 2013