DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
The amendments received on 05/14/2026 have been entered. Claims 1, 4, 9, 13, 30, 34-35, 38-43, 45-47, and 76-78 are pending.
Claims 34-35, 38-43, and 45-47 remain withdrawn for being directed to non-elected invention(s).
Claims 5 and 79 have been cancelled.
Claim 1 has been amended.
Claims 1, 4, 9, 13, 30, and 76-78 are examined in this Office action.
Objections and Rejections that are Withdrawn
All rejections of claims 5 and 79 have been rendered moot in light of Applicant’s cancellation of the claims.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code, not included in this action, can be found in a prior Office Action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claims 1, 4, 9, 13, and 30 remain rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bombom (Bombom et al., WIPO Publication WO/2015/042621, published on April 02, 2015, which has the benefit of PCT/AP2013/000002, filed on September 27, 2013, included in IDS dated 08/25/2022) in view of DeLong (DeLong et al., Pub. No.: US 2018/0228106 A1, Pub. Date: Aug. 16, 2018). This is a modified rejection necessitated by the claim amendments.
Claim 1 recites “a method of producing a sorghum doubled haploid embryo, or a sorghum doubled haploid plant, the method comprising:
pollinating a female sorghum diploid plant with pollen from a Pennisetum glaucum plant;
obtaining a sorghum haploid embryo; and
contacting the sorghum haploid embryo, or a plant derived therefrom, with a chromosome doubling agent”.
Bombom teaches that wide crosses provide opportunity to generate novel sources of genetic variation among important crop plants with the benefit of gene transfer, the induction of haploids, and/or the creation of new species (Bombom, page 2, first full paragraph).
Bombom teaches and claims a method of obtaining haploid sorghum plants wherein, the maize parent plant is used as the male parent in the cross and induces haploid production in sorghum (Bombom, claim 52, for example). Bombom further teaches that haploid sorghum and/or maize plants may be produced from crosses between sorghum and maize. In some aspects of the invention, haploid sorghum plants may be produced from a cross involving sorghum as the female parent plant and maize as the male parent plant. It follows therefrom that putative haploid sorghum and/or maize plants produced from wide crosses involving sorghum and/or maize are within the scope of the present invention (page 40, second paragraph).
Bombom teaches and claims that a second parent plant crossed to a sorghum plant is a plant in the Poaceae family – a Zea, Saccharum, Panicum, Miscanthus, Erianthus, Sorghastrum, or Pennisetum (Bombom, page 9, second paragraph, and claim 34). Bombom further teaches and claims wherein the second monocot parent plant is Pennisetum glaucum (i.e., pollinating a female sorghum diploid plant with pollen from a Pennisetum glaucum plant) (Bombom, page 9, first full paragraph; claim 35).
Bombom teaches embryo rescue, an in-vitro culture technique involving the excision and culture of immature or weak embryos onto media culture providing opportunity for the isolated embryo to survive and develop into a viable plant (i.e., obtaining the sorghum haploid embryo) (page 12, paragraph 5).
Bombom does not explicitly teach contacting the sorghum haploid embryo, or a plant derived therefrom, with a chromosome doubling agent.
However, DeLong teaches that Sorghum bicolor is an important and valuable food and feed grain crop. In addition, its vegetative parts are used for forage, syrup and shelter. Thus, a continuing goal of plant breeders is to develop stable high yielding sorghum hybrids that are agronomically sound. The reasons for this goal are to maximize the amount of grain produced on the land used and to supply food for both animals and humans (page 1, paragraph 0002).
DeLong teaches and claims a method of producing a sorghum doubled haploid embryo, seed, or plant, said method comprising contacting the sorghum haploid embryo or seed or the sorghum haploid plant with a chromosome doubling agent (DeLong, claim 9); methods of producing sorghum doubled haploid embryos, seed, or plants are also provided in which a sorghum haploid embryo or seed or a sorghum haploid plant is placed in contact with a chromosome doubling agent (i.e., contacting the sorghum haploid embryo, or a plant derived therefrom, with a chromosome doubling agent) (page 1, paragraph 0006).
At the time the instant specification was filed, it would have been obvious and within the scope
of one of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the method of obtaining haploid sorghum plants as taught by Bombom together with the method of producing a sorghum doubled haploid embryo, seed, or plant, said method comprising contacting the sorghum haploid embryo or seed or the sorghum haploid plant with a chromosome doubling agent as taught by DeLong. One would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Bombom and DeLong knowing that the method of contacting the sorghum haploid embryo or seed or the sorghum haploid plant with a chromosome doubling agent as taught by DeLong is a proven and common practice in the art for chromosome doubling. Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have a high expectation of success by combining the teachings of Bombom and DeLong.
The method of haploid induction including the steps of embryo rescue, and the use of a chromosome doubling agent in plants is a technique that was routine in the art at the time the application was filed, as taught by the cited references and the state of the art in general.
In regard to claim 4, DeLong teaches prior to pollination, the sorghum plants that are to be used as females may be emasculated using any known emasculation technique (i.e., wherein the sorghum plant is emasculated) (DeLong, page 4, paragraph 0068).
In regard to claim 9, DeLong teaches and claims a sorghum haploid plant produced by growing the sorghum haploid embryo (i.e., generating a sorghum haploid seedling from the sorghum haploid embryo) (DeLong, claim 26; page 1, paragraph 0004).
In regard to claims 13 and 30, DeLong teaches and claims contacting the sorghum haploid embryo with a chromosome doubling agent (DeLong, claims 9, 19, and 29; page 4, paragraph 0067); methods of chromosome doubling involve contacting the cells with colchicine, anti-microtubule agents or anti-microtubule herbicides, pronamide, nitrous oxide, or any mitotic inhibitor (i.e., wherein the sorghum haploid embryo is exposed to a chromosome doubling agent; wherein the chromosome doubling agent is selected from the group consisting of colchicine, pronamide, dithiopyr, oryzalin, Amiprofos-methyl(AMP), and trifluralin) (DeLong, page 4, paragraph 0070).
Claims 76-78 remain rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bombom (Bombom et al., WIPO Publication WO/2015/042621, published on April 02, 2015, which has the benefit of PCT/AP2013/000002, filed on September 27, 2013, included in IDS dated 08/25/2022) and DeLong (DeLong et al., Pub. No.: US 2018/0228106 A1, Pub. Date: Aug. 16, 2018) as applied to claims 1, 4-5, 9, 13, and 30 above, and in further view of Santra (Santra et al., 2017, Methods in Molecular Biology, Vol. 1679, Chapter 14, pp. 235-249).
Claim 76 recites “[t]he method of claim 1, further comprising contacting the caryopsis of the female sorghum plant with a growth regulator after pollination”.
Bombom and DeLong teach the method of claim 1.
Bombom and DeLong do not explicitly teach contacting the caryopsis of the female sorghum plant with a growth regulator after pollination.
However, Santra teaches the doubled haploid laboratory protocol for wheat using wheat-maize wide hybridization. The use of doubled haploid (DH) plants has revolutionized modern plant breeding and genetic mapping studies in many important crops. Rapid development of homozygosity shortens the breeding cycle time, leading to more rapid genetic gain and responsiveness to production and market challenges in commercial markets. The use of DHs may cut in half the time needed to produce a commercial cultivar in crops. Besides reducing time, DH technology fixes rare alleles and may play an important role in evaluation of genetic diversity. Thus, doubled haploid technology is useful in plant improvement for gene transfer and production of breeding lines, and in general biology for genome mapping and studies of chromosome behavior and phylogenetic relationships (Title and Introduction, page 235, first paragraph).
Santra further teaches that doubled haploids are homozygous plants developed by androgenesis (microspore and anther culture), gynogenesis (ovary and ovule culture), and wide hybridization. The method of crossing between species of the same or different genera is called wide hybridization. This technique includes six major steps: emasculation of the female flower; pollination of the emasculated flower; hormone treatment; embryo rescue; haploid plant regeneration in tissue culture medium; and chromosome doubling (Santra, Abstract, page 235).
In regard to claims 76-78, Santra teaches that the day after pollination the spikes should be sprayed with 2,4-D (Sigma) solution (Santra, Section 3.5, page 242). The instant specification describes that 24 hours after pollination, the plant growth regulator 2,4-D solution was sprayed on the pollinated spikelets (Example 2, page 28, paragraph 0098). In wheat, as in sorghum, the caryopsis lies within the spikes/spikelets (i.e., contacting the caryopsis of the female sorghum plant with a growth regulator after pollination (instant claim 76); wherein the growth regulator comprises indole acetic acid (IAA); indole-3-butyric-acid; 2,4-D; picloram; dicamba; 3,4-D; 2,4,5-T; or naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) (instant claim 77); wherein the growth regulator comprises 2,4-D (instant claim 78)) (Santra, Section 3.5, page 242).
At the time the instant application was filed, it would have been obvious and within the scope of one of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the methods of obtaining haploid plants as taught by Bombom and DeLong together with the doubled haploid laboratory protocol as taught by Santra. One would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Bombom, DeLong, and Santra knowing that contacting the spikes (caryopses) with a growth regulator after pollination leads to successful embryo growth. Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have a high expectation of success by combining the teachings of Bombom, DeLong, and Santra.
The method of contacting the caryopsis with a growth regulator after pollination was routine in the art at the time the application was filed, as taught by the cited references and the state of the art in general.
Response to Applicant’s Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 05/14/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that the Office action has not provided any reasoning for why an ordinarily-skilled artisan, without the benefit of hindsight or the teachings of the present application, would specifically select Pennisetum glaucum for the claimed cross.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. It is noted that in Example 1 (page 28, paragraph 0097) of the instant Specification that Pennisetum glaucum was not “specifically selected”. Example 1 describes testing several different species as pollen donors for sorghum haploid production (a few of which were also listed by Bombom – maize, pearl millet, eastern gamma grass, and teosinte). Example 1 further lists several plants that were used as the pollen donor and were crossed with female sorghum diploid plants for wide hybridization crosses (i.e., maize, wheat, pearl millet, canola, cotton, barley, rice, cogon grass, eastern gamma grass, teosinte, and sunflower). Pearl millet was chosen for generating significantly increased sorghum haploids compared to the other pollen donor species listed.
Further to this point, Table 2 of the instant Specification (pages 29-31, paragraph 0101) displays the results of the sorghum X pearl millet crossings in generating sorghum haploids. However, the instant Specification does not present any comparable data with the other species tested as pollen donors to validate unexpected results for the sorghum X pearl millet crossings. It was suggested to the Applicant in the Interview on 03/12/2026 to provide the comparable data.
Although Bombom does not explicitly teach crossing sorghum with Pennisetum glaucum to generate sorghum haploids, Bombom does teach that one benefit of wide hybridization crosses is the induction of haploids.
Bombom teaches a finite list that can be used as a second parent plant crossed to a sorghum can be a plant in the Poaceae family; further, the second plant may be a Pennisetum; and even further, the second monocot plant is a Pennisetum glaucum (page 9, first full paragraph).
Applicants are also reminded that prima facie obviousness is not rebutted by merely recognizing additional advantages or latent properties present but not recognized in the prior art. See MPEP § 2145. Mere recognition of latent properties in the prior art does not render nonobvious an otherwise known invention. Id.; In re Wiseman, 596 F.2d 1019, 201 USPQ 658 (CCPA 1979). Indeed, courts have held that “[t]he fact that appellant has recognized another advantage which would flow naturally from following the suggestion of the prior art cannot be the basis for patentability when the differences would otherwise be obvious.” Ex parte Obiaya, 227 USPQ 58, 60 (Bd. Pat. App. & Inter. 1985). Thus, Bombom teaches that one benefit of wide hybridization crosses is the induction of haploids, and a finite list of plants which can be crossed to sorghum.
Additionally, TEINGTHAM (Teingtham et al., 2017, Int J Appl Sci Technol, Vol. 10(4), pages 247-256; included on IDS dated 08/25/2022) teaches that haploids induced by wide hybridization are the result of the elimination of pollinating parent chromosome in early cell divisions following syngamy (the fusion of two cells) (page 251, left column, last paragraph). As to wide hybridization with sorghum, TEINGTHAM suggests that species in the Poaceae family (of which Pennisetum glaucum belongs) may be the best choice (page 251, right column, last full paragraph).
Summary
No claim is allowed.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Correspondence
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTINA MEADOWS whose telephone number is (703)756-1430. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9:00 am - 5:00 pm.
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CHRISTINA MEADOWS
Examiner
Art Unit 1663
/CHRISTINA L MEADOWS/Examiner, Art Unit 1663
/Amjad Abraham/SPE, Art Unit 1663
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