Interference 104,746 Paper 123
Stice v. Campbell
notebooks. Such records are highly technical, and in practice
are often rather abbreviated and idiosyncratic documents. The
significance of a given entry or series of entries is often not
apparent to an outsider, expert or not, although it may become so
if explained. Without such testimony — and commentary, if
available, from an opposing expert (or perhaps better, an
independent expert) — a lay panel cannot reasonably be assured of
coming to any reliable conclusions from its own study of the
notebooks. In the absence of testimony explaining and evaluating
the experimental procedures, tests, and the conclusions that may
be drawn from them, we decline to accord any weight to the
unexplained raw data of Cibelli's notebooks.
Moreover, there is no independent evidence in the record
corroborating Cibelli's experiments or the results. It is well-
settled that an inventor seeking to prove an actual reduction to
practice "must provide corroborating evidence in addition to his
own statements and documents. Such evidence may consist of
testimony of a witness, other than an inventor, to the actual
reduction to practice or it may consist of evidence of
surrounding facts and circumstances independent of information
received from the inventor. The purpose of the rule requiring
corroboration is to prevent fraud." Hahn v. Wong, 892 F.2d 1028,
1033, 13 USPQ2d 1313, 1317 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (internal quotes and
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