Interference No. 103,270
Keith et al., would make the proximal end of the guidewire
inaccessible and prevent a physician from holding the
guidewire in position and inflating the guidewire balloon
(KOB-87 to 93).
We do not agree that this alleged inoperativeness
vitiates CX-65 and 66 as evidence of conception. As pointed
out by Coelho at CB-64 to 66, many of the dimensions employed
by
Keith et al. in their calculations are disclosed as
approximate
or typical, not rigid. Moreover, and more fundamentally,
there
is conception when the invention is defined in the inventor's
mind such that only ordinary skill would be necessary to
reduce it to practice, without extensive research or
experimentation. Burroughs Wellcome Co. v. Barr Labs., Inc.,
40 F.3d 1223, 1228, 32 USPQ2d 1915, 1919 (Fed. Cir. 1994),
cert. denied, 515 U.S. 1130 (1995). It seems evident to us
that one of ordinary skill putting into practice the method
conceived by Coelho would design the lengths and positions of
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