Appeal No. 1999-1002
Application No. 08/672,493
and the claimed method of producing the fuser rolls.
Regardless of the above insufficiency, the examiner’s § 102(b)
on sale rejection fails under other grounds, as discussed
further in this opinion.
The appellants argue that any revenue received was
incidental to the primary purpose of the field-testing, which
was experimentation and development of the invention. The
appellants further argue that they did not charge the
operators at the test site for the use of the rolls, and “that
no money was paid by any of the sites for the rolls. . . .”
See Appellants Brief, page 17. In addition, the leases
the examiner refers to as a source of income were obtained
prior to the start of the experimentation. Finally, the
appellants argue that the experimental rolls were in fact more
expensive than the current production models due to their low
volume of production.
We do not consider the examiner’s position on this matter
to be well founded. First, the “public use” and “on-sale”
bars are meant to prevent the inventor from commercially
exploiting the exclusivity of his or her invention
substantially beyond the statutorily authorized period. See
RCA Corp. v. Data Gen. Corp., 887 F.2d 1056, 1062, 48 USPQ2d
21
Page: Previous 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007