Interference No. 103,587
In the present case, Levien has little in the way of activity which took place during the
period of delay. Levien relies heavily on an alleged lack of funds as an excuse for not having
filed his application sooner. However, Levien has cited no case which supports the proposition
that lack of funds is a sufficient excuse for delay in filing a patent application and we are of the
opinion that a lack of funds is not a sufficient excuse.
Furthermore, the testimony of the corroborating witness Jack Levien as to the inventor’s
activity after November 1987 is limited to paragraph 17 of his testimony. That testimony is
meager. It does not corroborate Raphael’s testimony that he did not file a patent application until
February 6, 1990 due to lack of funds. In essence, it indicates that his son licensed an earlier
invention to a U.S. corporation in September 1989, that he told his son to use the funds from the
license to “file patents on his other ideas” and that after the funds were received, Raphael had
the funds to pay for filing the patent application that evolved into his involved patent. There is
no other corroborated activity. Most notably, there is no corroborating evidence that the inventor
lacked the funds prior to licensing his patent to file an application for patent on the involved
invention; the corroborating testimony merely indicated that Raphael Levien used funds from the
license to file his application. Even assuming Raphael lacked the funds needed to file his patent
application, there is no evidence that Raphael attempted to obtain funding within a reasonable
time after November 1987 and failed. The licensed patent referred to in the testimony is not
identified in the record, and it may be that it could have been licensed at an earlier date if
Raphael were in need of funding.
Taking the facts and circumstances of this case into consideration, including the fact that
Raphael Levien was a young man at the time in question and resided with his parents at the time
of his alleged actual reduction to practice, we conclude that the period of about 27 months
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