Source: https://www.ptab.us/2011/06/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 08:03:04+00:00

Document:
The standard for determining whether the specification meets the enablement requirement was cast in the Supreme Court decision of Minerals Separation v. Hyde, 242 U.S. 261, 270 (1916), which postured the question: is the experimentation needed to practice the invention undue or unreasonable? That standard is still the one to be applied. In re Wands, 858 F.2d 731, 737 (Fed. Cir. 1988).
“A claimed invention having an inoperable or impossible claim limitation may lack utility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and certainly lacks an enabling disclosure under 35 U.S.C. § 112.” EMI Group North America, Inc. v. Cypress Semiconductor Corp., 268 F.3d 1342, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (citing Raytheon Co. v. Roper Corp., 724 F.2d 951, 956 (Fed. Cir. 1983)). “When a claim itself recites incorrect science in one limitation, the entire claim is invalid, regardless of the combinations of the other limitations recited in the claim.” EMI, 268 F.3d at 1349.
Further, it is also well established that where the difference between the prior art and the claims are a recitation of relative dimension of the claimed device, and a device having the claimed relative dimensions would not perform differently than the prior art device, the claimed device is not patentably distinct from the prior art device. See, e.g., Gardner v. TEC Sys., Inc., 725 F.2d 1338, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 1984); see also In re Dailey, 357 F.2d 669, 676 (CCPA 1966) (configuration of a claimed disposable plastic nursing container was a matter of choice which a person of ordinary skill in the art would have found obvious absent pervasive evidence that the particular configuration of the claimed container was significant).
This court, in reconsidering this case in banc, reaffirms that structural similarity between claimed and prior art subject matter, proved by combining references or otherwise, where the prior art gives reason or motivation to make the claimed compositions, creates a prima facie case of obviousness, and that the burden (and opportunity) then falls on an applicant to rebut that prima facie case. Such rebuttal or argument can consist of a comparison of test data showing that the claimed compositions possess unexpectedly improved properties or properties that the prior art does not have . . . . There is no question that all evidence of the properties of the claimed compositions and the prior art must be considered in determining the ultimate question of patentability, but it is also clear that the discovery that a claimed composition possesses a property not disclosed for the prior art subject matter, does not by itself defeat a prima facie case.
See e.g., In re Diamond, 360 F.2d 214, 217 (CCPA 1966) (affirming obviousness where the evidence showed that synergy was expected because combined drugs targeted different cellular mechanisms, and no evidence to the contrary was produced).
[P]atentability cannot be predicated on printing alone. In re Sterling, 70 F.2d 910, 912 (CCPA 1934).
Printed matter can patentability distinguish a claimed invention from the prior art when the critical question of whether there exists any new and unobvious functional relationship between the claimed printed matter and the claimed substrate is answered in the affirmative. In re Miller, 418 F.2d 1392, 1396 (CCPA 1969); In re Gulack, 703 F.2d 1381, 1386 (Fed. Cir. 1983); and In re Ngai, 367 F.3d 1336, 1338 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (“The PTO has the better argument”).
The Federal Circuit flatly rejected such an analysis in the context of obviousness in In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 350 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (“We decline to extract from Merck the rule that the Solicitor appears to suggest—that regardless of how broad, a disclosure of a chemical genus renders obvious any species that happens to fall within it.”). A reference that does not adequately support obviousness will not suffice to support a demonstration of anticipation. It is not unusual for improved properties to be discovered within a previously disclosed range of a composition.

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