Ex parte VASANTHAKUMAR et al. - Page 5




                 Appeal No. 94-1573                                                                             Paper No. 24                            
                 Application No. 07/552,744                                                                                Page 5                       


                 project.  Counsel explains the omission of co-applicant                                                                                
                 Montgomery from the paper as an oversight (Paper No. 14 at 12-                                                                         
                 13).  Counsel argues that arguments in the record explaining                                                                           
                 why the authors of the reference article were not the                                                                                  
                 inventors should be sufficient to overcome the 102(a)                                                                                  
                 rejection  (Paper No. 14 at 13).                                                                                                       
                           "It was incumbent ... on [Appellants] to provide a                                                                           
                 satisfactory showing which would lead to a reasonable                                                                                  
                 conclusion that [they are] the [true] inventor[s]" of the                                                                              
                 subject matter disclosed in the article and claimed in the                                                                             
                 application.  In re Katz, 687 F.2d 450, 455, 215 USPQ 14, 18                                                                           
                 (CCPA 1982).  Such showings should be in the form of sworn                                                                             
                 affidavits or declarations by the applicants filed in                                                                                  
                 accordance with 37 CFR §§ 1.131 and 1.132.  No such                                                                                    
                 declarations or affidavits are currently of record.   The                                   2                                          
                 argument of counsel cannot take the place of evidence lacking                                                                          
                 in the record.  E.g., Estee Lauder Inc. v. L'Oreal, S.A.,                                                                              
                 129 F.3d 588, 595, 44 USPQ2d 1610, 1615 (Fed. Cir. 1997).  The                                                                         


                          2Appellants state in their Brief on Appeal filed 26 July                                                                      
                 1993 that they will file declarations under 37 CFR § 1.131 or                                                                          
                 § 1.132 "within the next thirty days" (Paper No. 14 at 13),                                                                            
                 but there is no evidence of record that such declarations were                                                                         
                 ever received.                                                                                                                         





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