Griffin v. Swenson

Citations

• 15 App. D.C. 135
• 1899 U.S. App. LEXIS 3503

Syllabus

<p>Patents; Interference; Reduction to Practice; Diligence.</p> <p>1. The burden is on the junior applicant claiming to be the first to conceive an invention in an interference case where neither party actually reduced his invention to practice before filing his application, to show that he was in the exercise of reasonable diligence when his rival entered the field and down to the timeofhis, the junior applicant’s, own application for a patent.</p> <p>2. While circumstances such as poverty, debt, sickness, etc., tend to excuse delay in making an application for a patent, they will not justify indefinite postponement of action for a period of years; and failure by an applicant for upwards of two years before the filing of his rival’s application to take any positive action will suffice to deprive him of the benefit which he would otherwise have been entitled to by reason of prior conception.</p> <p>3. What is due diligence or excusable delay on the part of inventors can not, in the absence of statutory limitation, be measured by any arbitrary standard, but must be determined in each case by its own circumstances.</p>