Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
DETAILED ACTION
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 12/1/2025 has been entered.
Claims cancelled 1-39
Claims pending 40-54
Claims withdrawn 48-50,53 and 52,54
Claims currently under consideration 40-47,51
Elections/Restrictions
Applicant’s elected species was not found in the prior art, therefore the search was expanded to extent set forth below.
Priority
This application has a filing date of 07/08/2021 and is a CON of
15/488,204 filed 04/14/2017 now PAT 11091814;
15/488,204 is a CON of 14/402,028 filed 11/18/2014 now PAT 9663830
14/402,028 is a 371 of PCT/US13/41628 (aka WO2013176992) filed 05/17/2013
PCT/US13/41628 has PRO 61/799,772 03/15/2013 PCT/US13/41628 has PRO 61/649,342 05/20/2012
Withdrawn Objection(s) and/or Rejection(s)
All rejections from the previous action are hereby withdrawn in view of Applicant’s amendments.
New Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 40,41,42,44,45,51 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over He et al (2009 JACS 131:12088-90; of record) in view of Liu et al (2012 BMC Microbiology 12:56 thirteen pages; published 17 April 2012).
He et al teach throughout the document and especially p 12088 (including scheme) and figure 1, stereogenic S gammaPNAs inherently placed into wells of a slab gel (plate) for double stranded nucleic acid strand invasion assays. Said PNAs bear lysine residues which may be deemed any of a binding molecule, spacer, linker, hydrophobicity-changing group or charge-inducing group that can be detected by means including pH, resistance, conductivity or electrical potential at least. The foregoing reads on claim 40 (in part) and claims 41,42,44,45,51.
He et al do not teach: a nucleotide sequence from that is 1 nucleobase shorter at one end than any of SEQ ID NOS:1-309 of claim 40.
Liu et al suggest throughout the document and especially table 1, primers and a probe sequence CAGCAGCCGCGGTA that is one nucleotide shorter than present SEQ ID 234 like recited in claim 40 (Liu’s probe further reads on claims 44-45 as well).
It would have been prima facie obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have prepared a gammaPNA probe such as disclosed by He et al with Liu’s probe sequence.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have prepared a gammaPNA probe such as disclosed by He et al with Liu’s probe sequence for the benefit of using various PCR primers to quantitate bacterial species in diverse bacterial populations, advantageous according to Liu et al in the abstract.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success in applying gammaPNAs for strand invasion as advocated by He et toward detecting PCR amplicons, since He figure 2 does just this.
Claims 40,41,42,44,45,51 and 43,46-47 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over He et al (2009 JACS 131:12088-90; of record) in view of Liu et al (2012 BMC Microbiology 12:56 thirteen pages; published 17 April 2012) and further in view of Manneh (US PG-Pub 20120149128; of record)
He et al in view of Liu et al is relied upon as above.
He et al in view of Liu et al do not teach: streptavidin coating a magnetic bead for luminescence detection per claim 43 nor a biotinylated PEG spacer as in claims 46-47.
Like claims 43,46-47, further reading on claim 42 when drawn to a bead and even further reading on claim 45 when drawn to luminescence, Manneh suggests throughout the document and especially paragraphs 0100-0106 and 0272, luminescent oxygen channeling assays (LOCI™) using amino-PEG-biotin reagent from Molecular Biosciences and streptavidin coated magnetic beads.
It would have been prima facie obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have utilized gammaPNA probes to detect bacteria per He et al in view of Liu et al with luminescent oxygen channeling such as developed by Manneh.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated have utilized gammaPNA probes to detect bacteria analytes per He et al in view of Liu et al with luminescent oxygen channeling, such as developed by Manneh for the benefit of, among other advantages, multiplexing, as suggested detailed by Manneh in starting in section D at paragraph 0134.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success in having applied gammaPNAs as advocated by He et al toward detecting bacteria per Liu et al and employed a luminescent oxygen channeling as suggested by Manneh in light LOCI™ clinical tests for many diseases already having been available commercially (cf Manneh paragraph 0106).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTOPHER M GROSS whose telephone number is (571)272-4446. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10-6.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Heather Calamita can be reached on (571)272-2876. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CHRISTOPHER M GROSS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1684