2121.02 Compounds and Compositions — What Constitutes Enabling Prior Art [R-07.2022]

2121.02 Compounds and Compositions — What Constitutes Enabling Prior Art [R-07.2022]

[Editor Note: This MPEP section is applicable to all applications. For applications subject to the first inventor to file (FITF) provisions of the AIA, the relevant time is “before the effective filing date of the claimed invention”. For applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102, the relevant time is “at the time of the invention”. Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1313, 75 USPQ2d 1321, 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2005). See alsoMPEP § 2150 et seq. Many of the court decisions discussed in this section involved applications or patents subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102. These court decisions may be applicable to applications and patents subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 but the relevant time is before the effective filing date of the claimed invention and not at the time of the invention.]

I. ONE OF ORDINARY SKILL IN THE ART MUST BE ABLE TO MAKE OR SYNTHESIZE

Where a process for making the compound is not developed until after the date of invention, the mere naming of a compound in a reference, without more, cannot constitute a description of the compound. In re Hoeksema, 399 F.2d 269, 158 USPQ 596 (CCPA 1968). Note, however, that a reference is presumed operable until applicant provides facts rebutting the presumption of operability. In re Sasse, 629 F.2d 675, 207 USPQ 107 (CCPA 1980). Therefore, applicant must provide evidence showing that a process for making was not known at the relevant time. See the following subsection for the evidentiary standard to be applied.

II. A REFERENCE DOES NOT CONTAIN AN “ENABLING DISCLOSURE” IF ATTEMPTS AT MAKING THE COMPOUND OR COMPOSITION WERE UNSUCCESSFUL BEFORE THE RELEVANT TIME

When a prior art reference merely discloses the structure of the claimed compound, evidence showing that attempts to prepare that compound were unsuccessful before the relevant time will be adequate to show inoperability. In re Wiggins, 488 F.2d 538, 179 USPQ 421 (CCPA 1973). However, the fact that an author of a publication did not attempt to make the compound disclosed, without more, will not overcome a rejection based on that publication. In re Donohue, 766 F.2d 531, 226 USPQ 619 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (In this case, the examiner had made a rejection under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102(b) over a publication, which disclosed the claimed compound, in combination with two patents teaching a general process of making the particular class of compounds. The applicant submitted an affidavit stating that the authors of the publication had not actually synthesized the compound. The court held that the fact that the publication’s author did not synthesize the disclosed compound was immaterial to the question of reference operability. The patents were evidence that synthesis methods were well known. The court distinguished Wiggins, in which a very similar rejection was reversed. In Wiggins, attempts to make the compounds using the prior art methods were all unsuccessful.). Compare In re Hoeksema, 399 F.2d 269, 158 USPQ 596 (CCPA 1968) (A claim to a compound was rejected over a patent to De Boer which disclosed compounds similar in structure to those claimed (obvious homologs) and a process of making these compounds. Applicant responded with an affidavit by an expert named Wiley which stated that there was no indication in the De Boer patent that the process disclosed in De Boer could be used to produce the claimed compound and that he did not believe that the process disclosed in De Boer could be adapted to the production of the claimed compound. The court held that the facts stated in this affidavit were legally sufficient to overcome the rejection and that applicant need not show that all known processes are incapable of producing the claimed compound for this showing would be practically impossible.).