Interference No. 103,197
398-99, 123 USPQ 215, 217 (CCPA 1959), wherein an inventor was
excused for delaying building and testing of the invention of
the count, an automatic chroma control circuit for a new color
television receiver, until completion of the receiver into
which it could be incorporated and tested. "Delays in
reduction to practice caused by an inventor's efforts to
refine an invention to the most marketable and profitable form
have not been accepted as sufficient excuses for inactivity."
Griffith, 816 F.2d at 627, 2 USPQ2d at 1363. A short
period of unexplained inactivity is sufficient to defeat a
claim of diligence. Moller v. Harding, 214 USPQ 724, 729 (Bd.
Pat. Int. 1982) (unexplained inactivity for one and one-months
defeats claim of diligence); Morway v. Bondi, 203 F.2d 742,
749, 97 USPQ 318, 323 (CCPA 1953) (party not diligent where,
following June 7 activity, which was just prior to opponent's
June 14 entry into the field, party did not perform other acts
until August 1); Ireland v. Smith, 97 F.2d 95, 99-100, 37 USPQ
807, 811 (CCPA 1938) (held not diligent for failing to account
for period of three and one-half weeks).
In reviewing Morrison's evidence of diligence during the
spring of 1988, we have borne in mind that through June of
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