Interference No. 104,745
A. Change in view? The view of what?
Q. The view basically that AP-MALDI wasn't going to work. That's
probably overstated, but the skepticism that AP-MALDI would work, would it
continue to exist, would it not, up until the point of the fact that you proved that it
would work.
A. That's correct.
Q. Do you remember the date on which you successfully ran an AP-
MALDI experiment the first time?
. . . .
A. . . .[O]n March 14th [1998], I detected the analyte ions, and that was
unambiguous proof that it works, on March 14th, so that's the date.
Id. at LR 62, l. 24 to LR 63, l. 22. Dr. Burlingame testified that in October 1997 he thought the
AP-MALDI idea was "hare-brained and probably wouldn't work," Burlingame Depo., LR 347,
ll. 1-2, and that he and everyone else in the lab were amazed when Laiko got AP-MALDI to
work in a day or two. Id. at 350, ll. 2-5. Bai also cites Dr. Chait's testimony that he believed
"one would have to do a great deal of experimentation" to prepare a device that would work at
least adequately to demonstrate that the AP-MALDI principle was sound. Chait Depo.
(BX 2010) at 53, l. 16 to p. 54, l. 13.
Bai's argument fails because Laiko's case for conception does not require a showing that
Dr. Laiko had a reasonable expectation that the proposed AP-MALDI apparatus would work.
"An inventor's belief that his invention will work or his reasons for choosing a particular
approach are irrelevant to conception." Burroughs Wellcome Co. v. Barr Laboratories Inc.,
40 F.3d 1223, 1228, 32 USPQ2d 1915, 1920 (Fed. Cir. 1994). Bai's reliance on Hitzeman is
misplaced for the following reasons. The evidence in that interference showed that Hitzeman
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