Appeal No. 1999-1002
Application No. 08/672,493
appellants’ method of producing fuser rolls. The claimed
method of production was not disclosed to the public as the
production of the fuser rolls occurred internally at Xerox
Corporation under the supervision of Xerox employees in a
manner completely removed from the public eye. Thus, we agree
with appellants that the “claims relate to an internal process
that was not disclosed to the public as a result of the
experimental testing” (Appellants' Brief, page 17),
Nevertheless, for purposes of completion, we proceed to
consider the evidence purporting to support a case of public
use. The examiner supports his position that the public use
was not within the experimental use exception to 35 U.S.C. §
102(b) by arguing that there was no need to field-test the
fuser rolls outside the Xerox environment because “there is no
reason why the tests could not be performed in a "real"
environment at Xerox involving continuous usage of the rolls
over a much shorter period of time (See Examiner's Answer,
page 4) and that there was no reason for the rolls to be
tested to failure because Xerox could have estimated the
performance of the rolls without having to make 2 million
copies.
In response, the appellants argue that a “real
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