Interference No. 103,675
the problem with Chen et al.'s evidence of corroboration. The
researchers in the Bristol-Myers Squibb analytical department,
accepting Dr. Chen's original representations that he had prepared
mixed fluoro epimers of taxol, "confirmed" that Dr. Chen had, indeed,
prepared mixtures of fluoro epimers of taxol! Chen et al. now ask us
to disregard those findings based on subsequent determinations made on
dates subsequent to Bouchard et al.'s effective filing date and based
on evidence of "re-plotted" data and find that Chen et al.'s evidence
of an actual reduction to practice is adequately corroborated.
There is neither evidence contemporaneous in time with Dr.
Chen's notebook entries nor evidence independent of any of the
inventors (Chen and Farina) which corroborates Dr. Chen's testimony
concerning the alleged actual reductions to practice. Chen et al.'s
evidence does establish that samples of compounds prepared by Dr. Chen
were forwarded to the analytical section of Bristol-Myers Squibb's
laboratory in Wallingford, Connecticut, by Dr. Chen for analysis. But
in each instance Dr. Chen provided the analytical section with a
structural formula of the compound he believed he had prepared.
Dr. Chen did not give the analytical section an unknown
sample and request a determination of its structure by the analytical
section. Thus, the analytical section's alleged "confirmation" of the
structure provided to them by Chen cannot establish, independently of
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