Hopkins v. Peters

Citations

• 41 App. D.C. 302
• 1914 U.S. App. LEXIS 2178

Syllabus

<p>Patents; Interference; Disclosure; Reduction to Practice; Evidence.; Diligence; Abandonment of Application; Operativeness.</p> <p>1. A party in interference cannot prevail where he vaguely conceived the mere general result only nine days before the date of another party’s filing and constructive reduction to practice, and his disclosure' occurred a month after such filing date.</p> <p>2.' Conception and reduction to practice are sufficiently established where the inventor, two mechanics who worked upon the construction and are highly skilled in. the art, and two other persons, testify that the test, at which they were present, resulted in a successful operation, and fully explain the manner of operation. (Eollowing Boynton v. ' Taggart, 40 App. D. C. 82, and Beeberger v. Russel, 26 App. D. C. 344.) ' 1 ' ' '</p> <p>3. The extent and exact nature of a test are not, so long as the test was successful, material on the question of conception and reduction to practice of a device which was completed in all particulars as it appeared in evidence, and concededly contained the issue in interference.</p> <p>4. The lapse of two and one-lialf years between conception and filing an application in interference does not, even in the absence of reduction to practice, show lack of diligence, where the device is most complicated, and the inventor completed within that time seven machines, each of which contained the issue, and filed, within three months after completing the last machine, the application, which contained thirty-six sheets of drawings, seventy-live typewritten pages of specifications, and four hundred and thirteen claims whose description required great care and skill.</p> <p>5. The filing of an application in interference will not be taken as signifying an abandonment of a prior application concerning the same , invention, merely because the prior application did not disclose the present issue, where the drawings filed in the Patent Olfiee were completed two month