Interference No. 102,712
The fact that Augustine may have tested only one mode or
embodiment of his invention does not establish that he
considered that to be the best mode, viz., better than any
other embodiment. In other words, Suzuki has not established
by a preponderance of the evidence that Augustine, at the time
he filed his application, considered WG-300 to be better than
any other substrate for purposes of his invention. Rather, it
is at least as likely that he considered WG-300 to be merely a
convenient “off-the-shelf” substrate for testing purposes, and
only representative of the preferred category of substrates.
Accordingly, our view of the evidence as a whole is that
Augustine’s best mode is adequately disclosed in his
application in terms of preferred categories of materials and
processing parameters, and is not limited exclusively to the
WG-300 embodiment. Other factors which support this
conclusion will now be briefly discussed.
First of all, in our view, it is unlikely that Augustine
would have envisioned his best mode as being limited to but a
single substrate (WG-300) considering the diversity of
conditions which are typically encountered in use, e.g.,
workpieces which are composed of different materials and
processed under different cutting regimes. This diversity
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