Nantkwest, Inc. v. Lee

686 F. App'x 864
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
DecidedMay 3, 2017
Docket2015-2095
StatusUnpublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 686 F. App'x 864 (Nantkwest, Inc. v. Lee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Nantkwest, Inc. v. Lee, 686 F. App'x 864 (Fed. Cir. 2017).

Opinions

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge Dyk, in which Prost, Chief Judge, joins.

Dissenting Opinion filed by Circuit Judge Stoll.

Dyk, Circuit Judge.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) rejected claims 20, 26, and 27 of U.S. Patent Application No. 10/008,955 (“’955 patent application”) on the ground that the claims would have been obvious. NantKwest sought review in district court, pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 145, asserting that claims 20, 26, and 27 of the application were nonobvious. The district court granted the USPTO’s motion for summary judgment of obviousness. Nant-Kwest appeals. We affirm.

Background

NantKwest is the assignee of the patent application at issue, filed by Hans Klin-gemann (“patent applicant”), directed to the use of a specific type of immune cells for treating cancer.

The immune system can be divided into its innate and adaptive responses. The innate immune response—which is the first line of defense—comprises immune cells like natural killer (“NK”) cells that rapidly attack anything that they sense as foreign. NK cells generally have limited target-recognition specificity and attack rather indiscriminately. The adaptive immune response—which is the second line of defense—comprises immune cells like T cells that attack specific foreign antigens that they have been trained to recognize. The adaptive immune response is thus slower [866]*866but more target-specific. NK cells and T cells have different cell surface proteins and respond to certain target cell receptors differently. The patent application here concerns the use of a particular cell line1 of NK cells—NK-92.

Despite these differences between NK cells and T cells, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, various prior art references taught that both T cells and NK cells were capable of lysing (destroying) cancer cells. These references described in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo experiments demonstrating this ability. By 1997, NK cells and T cells were the only two types of immune cells known “to recognize and lyse tumor cells in vivo in mammals.” J.A. 779-80.

Two specific prior art references are involved here. First, U.S. Patent No. 5,272,082, by Santoli et al. (“Santoli”), taught that a specific cell line of T cells, TALL-104, can be used in vivo to treat cancer. Second, Gong, Maki, and Klingem-ann (the ’955 patent applicant) published a study (“Gong”) that taught that a specific NK cell line, NK-92, can lyse cancer cells in vitro with high efficacy. The question here is whether these references rendered the ’955 application’s claims obvious.

On December 7, 2001, the patent application was filed with a priority date of April 30, 1997. Claim 20, an independent claim on appeal here, provides

A method of treating a cancer in vivo in a mammal comprising the step of administering to the mammal a medium comprising an NK-92 cell line ATCC Deposit No. CRL-2407, wherein said cancer is recognized and lysed by said NK-92 cell line.

J.A. 5. Also on appeal are two dependent claims. Claim 26 teaches that “[t]he method of treating a cancer described in claim 20 wherein the route of administration of the cells to the mammal is intravenous and the mammal is human.” Id. Claim 27 teaches that “[t]he method of- treating a cancer described in claim 20 further comprising the step of administering to said mammal a cytokine that promotes the growth of said NK-92 cell line.” Id.

The USPTO Examiner rejected the claims at issue and found that “it would have been prima facie obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art ... in April 1997 to combine the teachings of Santoli and Gong to arrive at the claimed method because Gong ... teaches use of NK-92 cells to lyse tumor cells, while Santoli ... teaches in vivo use of cytotoxic cell lines.” J.A. 8 (internal quotation marks omitted).

The applicant then appealed to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (“Board”). The Board affirmed the Examiner’s rejection on the ground that a person of ordinary skill in the art “would have been motivated to replace the TALL-104 cells in Santoli’s method with NK-92 cells based on Gong’s disclosure that NK-92 cells spontaneously kill [leukemia and lymphoma cancer] cells with high efficiency.” J.A. 10 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 145, NantKwest then filed a complaint in district court, seeking judgment that claims 20, 26, and 27 of the patent application were nonobvious. The USPTO moved for summary judgment. In response, NantKwest argued that this case involves disputes of factual issues that cannot be resolved on summary judgment, relying on expert reports from [867]*867Dr. Miller (“Miller”) and new references submitted for the § 145 proceeding. The district court granted summary judgment “because there is no genuine material factual dispute as to whether the invention claimed in the [patent application] was obvious over the prior art, as found by both the Examiner and the Board.” J.A. 15.

NantKwest appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

Discussion

I

This court reviews the district court’s grant or denial of summary judgment de novo. MicroStrategy Inc. v. Bus. Objects, S.A., 429 F.3d 1344, 1349 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (citations omitted). Summary judgment may be granted only “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). Claim construction is an issue of law that we review de novo where, as here, there is no relevant extrinsic evidence. Teva Pharm. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., — U.S. -, 135 S.Ct. 831, 841, — L.Ed.2d - (2015).

A patent is obvious if “a skilled artisan would have been motivated to combine the teachings of the prior art references to achieve the claimed invention, and that the skilled artisan would have had a reasonable expectation of success in doing so.” Procter & Gamble Co. v. Teva Pharm. USA, Inc., 566 F.3d 989, 994 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted).

II

NantKwest contends that we should reverse the grant of summary judgment because the district court used an incorrect claim construction. Initially, the district court construed “cancer” to mean a “plurality or multiple cancer cells.” J.A. 16. However, in addressing the reasonable expectation of success, the court appeared to consider “cancer” as meaning “one or more cancer cells.” J.A. 22. We agree with NantKwest that this is an incorrect construction of “cancer.” The correct construction of the claim term “treating a cancer” “require[s] lysis of many cells, in order to accomplish the goal of treating cancer,” and not merely lysing one or a few cancer cells. J.A. 722.

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686 F. App'x 864, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/nantkwest-inc-v-lee-cafc-2017.