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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
Claims 1-5, 7, 9 and 11-23 are pending. Claims 1-5, 7, 9 and 11-18 are the subject of this NON-FINAL Office Action.
Restriction
Applicants elected Group I, claims 1-5, 7, 9 and 11-18 without traverse in the Reply 04/17/2026. Claims 19-23 are withdrawn.
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 for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1-5, 7, 9 and 11-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TURNER (US20150177237), in view of HERON (US20160010147).
The prior art as a whole demonstrates that it would have been obvious to a skilled artisan in nanopore techniques at the time of filing to apply familiar spacer structures to the prior art nucleic acids to achieve controlled nanopore movement with a reasonable expectation of success.
As to claim 1, TURNER teaches (a) contacting the sample with a carrier and a nanopore, wherein the carrier comprises a single-stranded leader, an identifier region, and a molecule-binding region specific for a molecule to be detected, and wherein a motor protein is bound to the carrier such that it can control the movement of the identifier region within the nanopore (“carrier” with tail with barcode, leader and aptamer as analyte binder; Fig. 1 and paras. 0134-56, 0159-60); (b) taking one or more optical or electrical measurements as a carrier moves within the nanopore to characterise the identifier region and to determine whether or not the molecule is bound to the molecule-binding region (Fig. 1; Abstract).
As to claim 7, TURNER teaches the carrier comprises more than one identifier region and/or more than one molecule-binding region (Fig. 1 and paras. 0134-56, 0159-60).
As to claim 9, TURNER teaches the molecules comprise neurotransmitters, proteins and/or miRNAs (claim 25 and paras. 0059 & 0061).
As to claim 11, TURNER teaches the molecule-binding region is an aptamer, antibody, antibody fragment, nanobody or affibody (Fig. 1).
As to claim 12, TURNER teaches the molecule-binding region is complementary to a miRNA (paras. 0063ff).
As to claim 13, TURNER teaches the identifier region is a polynucleotide and the method comprises determining the polynucleotide sequence of the identifier region (paras. 0160-61 and claim 11).
As to claim 14, TURNER teaches the method is used to detect the presence or absence of the molecules (para. 0011, for example).
As to claim 5, TURNER teaches the method is used to determine the concentration of the molecules (id.)
As to claim 16, TURNER teaches the multiple molecules are 10 or more different molecules (para. 0057, for example).
As to claim 18, TURNER teaches the nanopore is a protein pore, a solid state pore, or a DNA origami pore (para. 0095, for example).
TURNER does not explicitly teach motor protein with spacer.
However, motor proteins used with spacers were familiar in the nanopore art to better regulate transmembrane movement, increasing detection specificity and sensitivity. For example, HERON re-iterates the well-known fact that motor protein based nanopore sequencing (e.g. using helicase) allows control of the movement of a polynucleotide through a pore especially when a potential, such as a voltage, is applied, and includes moving a target polynucleotide in a controlled and stepwise fashion against or with the field resulting from the applied voltage (para. 0004 and Examples). One further improvement to this end is the use of spacers to control helicase stalling (Abstract, paras. 0005-06 and Figures). Thus, a skilled artisan would have been familiar with motor protein based nanopore options easily adapted to the nanopore technique of TURNER to further improve sensitivity and specificity of analyte detection.
Conclusion
No claims are allowed.
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/AARON A PRIEST/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1681
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