Interference No. 103,345
practice to establish priority. Paulik v. Rizkalla, 796 F.2d
456, 460, 230 USPQ 434, 437 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
While Roberge's failure to prove diligence is
dispositive of this interference, in the interest of
completeness we have also considered how the parties would
have fared had Roberge proved diligence. Staples argues that
under these circumstances he would prevail based on conception
prior to Roberge's June 16, 1992, conception date, in which
case Staples would be entitled to an award of priority as the
first to conceive and the first to reduce to practice.
Sherman v. Hope, 161 F.2d at 268, 73 USPQ at 392. For the
following reasons, we agree with Roberge that Staples has not
proved he was the first to conceive.
Conception is the formation "in the mind of the
inventor of a definite and permanent idea of the complete and
operative invention, as it is therefore to be applied in
practice," Coleman v. Dines, 754 F.2d 353, 359, 224 USPQ 857,
862 (Fed. Cir. 1985), and must include every feature or
limitation of the claimed invention. Davis v. Reddy, 620 F.2d
885, 889, 205 USPQ 1065, 1069 (CCPA 1980). Moreover,
"[c]onception must be proved by corroborating evidence which
- 13 -
Page: Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007