Gammeter v. Thropp

Citations

• 42 App. D.C. 564
• 1914 U.S. App. LEXIS 2336

Syllabus

<p>Patents; Interference; Patentability; Reduction to Practice; Burden of Proof; Appeal and Error; Trial; Public Use; Diligence.</p> <p>1. The question of priority, and not of invention, is involved in an interference ease; and therefore the matter of patentability will not be therein considered. (Citing Putnam, v. Wetmore, 39 App. D. C. 138.)</p> <p>2. The burden of proof as to reduction to practice rests, in an interference case, upon the junior party.</p> <p>3. The unanimous findings of the tribunals of the Patent Office, that a junior party in interference did not reduce to practice before the senior party’s filing date, will not be disturbed on appeal to this court, where the question is one solely of fact and no error is clearly apparent.</p> <p>4. The denial of a motion of a junior party in interference, to amend his preliminary statement by alleging an earlier reduction to practice, is not error where his evidence shows tests which either did not amount to reduction to practice or, even if sufficient, were no more than the senior party did at a still earlier date by way of reduction to practice.</p> <p>5. The issues in an interference, reciting an apparatus for forming pneumatic tires, comprising in combination a core upon which a tire may be formed, a bead-adjusting device comprising an annular ring having a scat on its periphery for the reception of a bead, and a shoulder thereon for centering the ring with respect to the core (or a bead-applying form adapted to hold a formed bead ring and to be placed adjacent to fabric on said core), whereby a bead on the core may be accurately located on a tire formed on the core by a lateral movement of the bead-adjusting device,—are satisfied by the device of the senior party, whose application states that the bead is to be placed in position on the recess of the ring, and the latter moved laterally with respect to the core until the bead is brought into immediate contact with th.e tire foundation, when such pressure