Appeal 2007-2254
Application 10/383,115
obviousness. See In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1469, 43 USPQ2d 1362,
1365 (Fed. Cir. 1997). Therefore, we agree with the Examiner that the
amounts suggested by Amin would inherently be “effective to inhibit or
reduce amyloid plaque formation.”
Appellant argues that Amin “provides only the barest speculation that
NO and/or overexpression of iNOS [inducible nitric oxide synthase] may be
associated with Alzheimer’s pathology” and that “[s]uch speculative
remarks . . . do not rise to the level of providing motivation to arrive at the
presently claimed methods, nor do they rise to the level of providing any
reasonable expectation of success” (Br. 7-8). Appellant argues that, “at best,
[Amin] can only be considered an invitation to experiment” (id. at 8).
We are not persuaded by this argument. We conclude that Amin
provides motivation to administer tetracycline compounds, such as the ones
recited in claim 1, to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Amin states that “NO
appears to be involved in various medical conditions, including . . .
Alzheimer’s disease,” and that, “[s]ince many of these conditions are
characterized by alterations in cytokine expression, it may well be that
abnormally high expression or activity of inducible NOS is a key factor in
the associated pathology” (id. at col. 7, ll. 21-34).
We do not agree that use of the terms “appears” and “it may well be”
renders Amin sufficiently speculative such that one of ordinary skill in the
art would not have had a reasonable expectation of success. In fact, Amin
states that its invention “can be used to treat any of these diseases,”
including Alzheimer’s disease (Amin, col. 7, ll. 34-35). We agree with the
Examiner that these teachings in Amin would have provided one of ordinary
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