Appeal No. 1999-0194
Application No. 08/436,626
exercised by PennDoT over the precast diaphragms incorporated
in the Conewago Creek and Schuylkill River bridges inured to
the benefit of appellant. Moreover, it does not appear, based
on the record, that PennDoT was under any formal obligation to
report inspection information regarding the precast diaphragms
to appellant, or that they in fact ever reported, on a regular
basis, any such inspection information to appellant. At best,
it appears that there may have been an informal agreement
between PennDoT and appellant to the effect that appellant
would be informed of “any significant developments” learned in
inspections (N13, N20). However, it is unclear from the
record exactly what appellant would have considered “a
significant development” that was worthy of being drawn to his
attention, or whether PennDoT was informed of what
“developments” they were expected to report. For these
reasons, we consider that the amount of control appellant
maintained over the precast diaphragms installed in the
Conewago Creek and Schuylkill River bridge projects was, at
most, minimal. While the amount of control retained by an
inventor over the precritical date activity is not the
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