Interference No. 103,345
Dworkin, 489 F.2d 1277, 180 USPQ 388 (CCPA 1974). Roberge's
reliance on these cases is misplaced, however, because none of
them concerns a charge of abandonment, suppression, or
concealment leveled against a senior party, as in the present
case. Under these circumstances, it is not enough to show
that an actual reduction to practice was followed by a long
period of unexplained inactivity; instead, it is necessary to
show spurring or a specific intent to abandon, suppress, or
conceal. See Connin, 223 USPQ at 250:
Although a 22-month unexplained delay might,
under other circumstances, be considered fatal to a
de facto first inventor's case (see, e.g., Smith v.
Crivello, 215 USPQ 446 (Bd. Pat. Int. 1982)), we
believe that where, as here, the charge of
suppression or concealment is leveled against the
senior party, other considerations come into play.
The policy implemented in 35 U.S.C. 102(g) was
discussed in Peeler v. Miller, [535 F.2d at 655, 190
USPQ at 123], as follows:
At least since Mason v. Hepburn, 12 App. D.C. 86
(1898), the courts have implemented a public
policy favoring, in interference situations, the
party who expeditiously starts his invention on
the path to public disclosure through the
issuance of patents by filing a patent
application. This policy is now implemented
through §102(g) even as it was in Mason v.
Hepburn prior to that statute, by denying de
jure first inventor status to de facto first
inventors who, or whose assignees, frustrate
this policy. (190 USPQ 123)
Since the senior party, by definition, is the party
who first started his invention on the path to
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