Court Opinion

ID: 9449172
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:59:50.583798+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:44.721634
License: Public Domain

MARTIN, Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
While I concur with the majority in the reversal of the board’s decision as to the rejection of method claims 10 through 15, I am unable to agree with the reversal of the board’s decision as to the rejection of compound claims 1 through 9 and 16 through 18.
The majority is of the opinion that when the entire disclosure, taken as a whole, is considered, one skilled in the art would know how to use the claimed compounds. The majority opinion states “it seems apparent that a steroid chemist would know that testosterone is the naturally occurring male hormone. It seems likely that the steroid chemist would then know how to use 4-chloro-testosterone, the compound recited in claim 3.” From this we gather that the majority opinion considers that no further teaching would be required to use 4-chloro-testosterone in the manner in which the naturally occurring testosterone is used. I believe this is the crux of the opinion as to the reversal of examiner on claims 1 through 9 and 16 through 18.
I can find no statement in the application equating the biological activity of testosterone to that of 4-chloro-testoster-one and the record does not indicate that such knowledge was known at the time *479appellants filed their application. I take note that affidavits were filed more than two years after the filing date of appellants’ application which prove that 4-ehloro-testosterone propionate shows promise as a new growth promoting agent in ruminants and rats. However, such affidavits cannot have the effect of removing the deficiency of appellants’ application as filed. See In re Mosher, 79 F.2d 911, 23 CCPA 740; In re Smyth, 189 F.2d 982, 38 CCPA 1130; and In re Herr, 304 F.2d 906, 907, 50 CCPA 705. It would also seem from the record that there is a high degree of unpredictability in the steroid field and that this unpredictability would render an assumption of related biological activity based on a similarity of structure of various steroid derivatives incorrect. The record indicates, for example, that cortisone has the structure

and that the closely related steroid (Eeichstein’s substance U) has the structure

*480Cortisone is known to be an active adrenocortical hormone. The record, however, states that Reichstein’s substance U is inactive, even though it is analogous to cortisone in having the same fundamental ring structure. Therefore, it does not seem apparent to me that a steroid chemist would know how to use the claimed compounds from the information disclosed in appellants’ application.
I would affirm the decision of the board as to claims 1 through 9 and 16 through 18, since I do not consider appellants’ disclosure of how to use the compounds recited in those claims sufficient to satisfy the requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112.