included three declarations and thirty-five exhibits, many of the exhibits were redacted. During the interference, he has also submitted a collection of "evidence and relevant documents." Paper 53. The collection appears to include unredacted copies of the documents included with § 1.608(b) submission as well as additional documents. While the notice declaring this interference prohibits incorporating arguments by reference to other papers, in light of the fact that this interference is being prosecuted pro se, we exercise our discretion to consider that paper along with the other papers submitted as part of Dr. Heshmatpour's case-in-chief.3 Dr. Heshinatpour asserts the following grounds relating to priority: I . Dr. Heshmatpour invented the subject matter of the count prior to Megy, and 2. Megy derived the subject matter of the invention from Heshmatpour.' Application 09/020,616, Paper 7, p. 23. With respect to the prior invention, Dr. Heshmatpour asserts that he was the first to conceive and first to reduce the invention to practice. Application 09/020,616, Paper 7, p. 23. He does not argue that he was the first to conceive and last to reduce the invention to practice nor assert diligence from before Megy's effective filing date to an actual or constructive reduction to practice. Wc thus turn to Heshinatpour's priority and derivation cases. ANALYSIS Actual reduction to practice In order to establish actual reduction to practice, the inventor must prove that he constructed an embodiment or perfonried a process that met all the limitations of the claim, and that he detennined that the invention would work for its intended purpose. Slip Track Systems, Inc. v. Metal-Lite, Inc., 304 F. 3d 125 6,1265, 64 USPQ2d 1423, 1429 (Fed. Cir. 2002); Cogper v. Goldfarb, 3 Our consideration of Dr. Heshmatpour's case is complicated by the fact that Dr. Heshmatpour's brief refers to exhibits by number, but the evidence and documents submitted (Paper 53) do not have any exhibit numbers. While the referenced exhibit numbers often correspond to those submitted during prosecution as part of the § 1.608(b) showings, others do not correspond and some were apparently submitted for the first time during this interference as part of Paper 53. 4 Heshmatpour also asserted that Megy was not entitled to the priority benefit ofprovisional Application 60/062,155. Application 09/020,616, Paper 7, p. 23. However, during the preliminary motions phase, Heshmatpour did not file a motion pursuant to 37 CFR § 1.633(g) to attack the benefit accorded Megy's provisional application in the notice declaring this interference. Thus, the issue is not before us. -6-Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007