Invention Committee for their consideration.” GX 37, GX 40, GX 43. In February of 1991, it was
determined that PI 14973 had sufficient merit to be submitted to the Invention Committee. GX 45.
The inventions were assigned Invention Numbers (IN) 14546, 14545, 14544 and 15174, respectively.
GX 37, GX 40, GX 43, GX 45. Under Phillips’ established invention evaluation procedures, the
next step was to transfer the matter to a patent attorney for presentation to the Invention Committee.
GR 9, ¶ 5-6; GR 414-15, ¶¶ 7-9. However, the record shows that IN 14546, 14545, 14544 and
15174 were not transferred to a patent attorney until May, 1992. GR 13-14, ¶ 17, GX 59; GR 15,
¶ 22, GX 61; GR 17, ¶ 27, GX 63; GR 19, ¶ 32, GX 65. This is almost 31 months after IN 14546,
14545, and 14544 were approved for evaluation by the Invention Committee and almost 15 months
after IN 15174 was approved. During this time progress towards filing an application languished.
Geerts has not provided any explanation for this delay. We hold that the unexplained thirty-one and
fifteen month periods between the approval for submission to the Patent Committee in October,
1989, and February, 1991, and the assignment to a patent attorney in May, 1992, gives rise to an
inference of suppression or concealment.
2.
Geerts attempts to justify the delay in progress on the application with work on an invention
said to be closely related to the invention of the count and an additional reduction to practice of the
count said to be a refinement of the invention.
a.
Geerts argues that
[t]he time between the Geerts reductions to practice and the filing of an
application is fully accounted for by activity in perfecting the invention, in
exploring its scope, and in disclosing the results of that work in the patent
application.
Paper 62, p. 132. For the period beginning November 1990 and ending in early 1993 Geerts relies
on work on an invention characterized as closely related to the invention of the count. This period
spans the period of inactivity by Phillips’ patent liaison. Geerts argues:
Beginning in November 1990 and continuing through early 1993, Dr. Geerts
and his co-workers extensively researched the closely related subject matter
of co-catalysts prepared from aluminoxanes precipitated with a boroxine.
This research resulted in a patent application which was filed in February
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