Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01746/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01746-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ching-Wu "Paul" Chu
Appellee
Pei-Herng Hor
Appellant
Ruling Meng
Appellant

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

RULING MENG, PEI-HERNG HOR,

Plaintiffs-Appellants

v.

CHING-WU "PAUL" CHU,

Defendant-Appellee

______________________ 

2014-1746, 2015-1390

______________________ 

Appeals from the United States District Court for the 

Southern District of Texas in No. 4:08-cv-03584, Judge 

Keith P. Ellison.

______________________ 

Decided: April 5, 2016

______________________ 

BRENT C. PERRY, Law Office of Brent C. Perry, Houston, TX, argued for plaintiff-appellant Ruling Meng. Also 

represented by GORDON GRAY WAGGETT, Gordon G. Waggett, P.C., Houston, TX. 

JOE W. BEVERLY, Dow Golub Remels & Beverly, LLP, 

Houston, TX, argued for plaintiff-appellant Pei-Herng

Hor. Also represented by WILLIAM POWELL JENSEN, Crain 

Caton & James, Houston, TX.

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2 MENG v. CHU

LESTER L. HEWITT, Law Office of Lester L. Hewitt, 

Houston, TX, argued for defendant-appellee. Also represented by DAVID R. CLONTS, REHAN M. SAFIULLAH, ASHLEY 

M. BROWN, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP, 

Houston, TX; EMILY CURTIS JOHNSON, Washington, DC.

______________________ 

Before PROST, Chief Judge, DYK and WALLACH, Circuit 

Judges.

PROST, Chief Judge. 

Appellants Pei-Herng Hor (“Hor”) and Ruling Meng 

(“Meng”) filed this suit against Appellee Ching-Wu Chu 

(“Chu”) under 35 U.S.C. § 256 for correction of inventorship of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,709,418 (“’418 patent”) and 

7,056,866 (“’866 patent”). Following an eight-day bench 

trial, the United States District Court for the Southern 

District of Texas denied both parties’ claims. For reasons 

discussed below, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

A 

The circumstances giving rise to this appeal are 

summarized in the district court’s decisions, Hor v. Chu, 

No. 4:08-CV-3584, 2015 WL 269123 (S.D. Tex. Jan. 21, 

2015) and Hor v. Chu, 765 F. Supp. 2d 903, 906 (S.D. Tex. 

2011), aff’d in part, rev’d in part and remanded, Hor v. 

Chu, 699 F.3d 1331 (Fed. Cir. 2012). We provide information relevant to the issues here below. 

The patents at issue generally relate to superconducting compounds that have transition temperatures higher 

than the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. The ’418 patent, 

filed on January 23, 1989 and issued on June 6, 2006,

covers compounds consisting of Yttrium, Barium, Copper, 

and Oxygen, assembled according to a 2-1-4 ratio of 

Yttrium to Barium to Copper. The ’866 patent, filed on 

March 26, 1987 and issued on May 4, 2010, covers comCase: 14-1746 Document: 89-2 Page: 2 Filed: 04/05/2016
MENG v. CHU 3

pounds consisting of Yttrium and/or certain rare earth

elements (such as Gadolinium, Europium, and Samarium), Barium, Copper, and Oxygen, assembled according 

to a 1-2-3 ratio. Chu is the sole named inventor on both

patents. 

Chu worked with Hor and Meng in the High Pressure 

Low Temperature (“HPLT”) lab at the University of 

Houston. Chu was a physics professor and the lab’s 

principal investigator. Hor was Chu’s graduate student 

and, later, post-doctoral fellow. Meng served as an independent materials scientist. 

In November 1986, Meng’s Chinese mentor pointed 

her to an article entitled “Possible High Tc Superconductivity in the Ba-La-Cu-O System” by Bednorz and Müller, 

which she subsequently shared with Chu. Meng and Chu 

decided to reproduce the compound described in the 

article (“LBCO compound”) using the solid state reaction 

method. Meng and Chu disagree as to whose idea it was 

to use the solid state reaction method, an approach that 

differed from Bednorz and Müller’s, who used a coprecipitation method. Meng prepared the LBCO compound in late November, and the group observed it had 

superconducting qualities. 

At some point between December 1986 and January 

1987, the group contemplated substituting Yttrium for 

Lanthanum in the LBCO compound.1 This substitution 

 

1 Both Hor and Chu claim that they were the first 

to come up with the idea of substituting Yttrium for 

Lanthanum. Compare Appellee Br. 13–14, with CrossAppellant Br. 8–10. This matter was disputed below as 

the basis for Hor’s claims to inventorship of the ’418 

patent, which the district court found Hor failed to prove 

by clear and convincing evidence. J.A. 52. Hor does not 

challenge the district court’s decision with respect to the 

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4 MENG v. CHU

was first performed in late January using a 2-1-4 ratio of 

Yttrium to Barium to Copper. The resulting compound,

YBCO-214, eventually became the subject of the ’418 

patent. 

YBCO-214 contained a black phase, which was superconducting, and a green phase, which was not. Interested 

in isolating the black superconducting phase, Chu directed Meng to prepare samples of the black phase, so 

that its chemical formula and structure could be determined. 

On or around February 22, 1987, the HPLT lab began 

work on pair-breaking experiments which partially substituted Gadolinium, the most magnetic rare earth element, for Yttrium in YBCO-214. Chu claims 

responsibility for these partial substitution experiments, 

Appellee Br. 18–19, and Hor has conceded that “it is 

possible that a compound with a small fraction substitution of Gadolinium for Yttrium was actually created—and 

even possibly created at the direction of Chu . . . .” CrossAppellant Reply Br. 20. However, the parties dispute the 

extent to which synthesis work was completed and verified.

Days later, on February 27 or 28, the HPLT group received preliminary results identifying black phase as 

YBCO-123, a compound having a 1-2-3 ratio of Yttrium to 

Barium to Copper. These results were finalized by March 

8. 

Pair-breaking experiments ramped up in early March, 

but with a new focus: instead of partially substituting 

magnetic rare earth elements for Yttrium in YBCO-214, 

the group completely substituted magnetic rare earth

 

’418 patent in this appeal, Cross-Appellant Br. 28, so we 

need not reach the issue of whether Yttrium substitution 

originated with Chu or Hor. 

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MENG v. CHU 5

elements for Yttrium in YBCO-123. These complete 

substitutions appear to have been contemplated as early 

as March 7, as a lab notebook entry shows chemical 

formulas for completely substituting rare earth elements 

in YBCO-123 on this date. At trial, Chu testified that this 

list of substitutions was “his.” J.A. 4150. Hor does not 

claim responsibility for this entry. See Cross-Appellant 

Br. 19 n.3; Oral Argument at 15:35–45, available at

http://oralarguments.cafc.uscourts.gov/default.aspx?fl=20

14-1746.mp3. Over the next two weeks, the group synthesized and confirmed the superconductivity of at least 

ten different compounds, all created by completely substituting Yttrium with a magnetic rare earth element, 

including Europium (Eu), Samarium (Sm), Gadolinium 

(Gd), Cerium (Ce), Terbium (Tb), Neodymium (Nd), Erbium (Er), Dysprosium (Dy), Holmium (Ho), and Ytterbium 

(Yb). 

Hor and Chu disagree as to how this new series of experiments came about. According to Chu, he originally 

had the idea to perform complete rare earth substitution

back in February, when he performed partial rare earth

substitution and observed that this did not suppress 

superconductivity. He then claims that, as a natural 

consequence of this activity, he instructed Meng in March 

to try complete substitution of Europium and Samarium, 

followed by Gadolinium and other rare earth elements. 

Hor does not claim responsibility for the Europium and 

Samarium substitutions, but instead dismisses them as 

“substitutions [likely] done by Meng as a part of a vast 

number of different elements being tried by the HPLT 

lab.” Cross-Appellant Br. 19 n.3. Instead, he claims that 

the true surge in complete rare earth substitution experiments began with the successful substitution of Gadolinium on March 15. Hor claims that he—not Chu—

triggered this activity on March 11 or 12, when he instructed Meng to synthesize a compound that completely 

substituted Gadolinium for Yttrium in YBCO-123. 

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Regardless of how they arose, the outcome of the complete rare earth substitution experiments was significant; 

they revealed an entire line of previously-unknown rare 

earth superconductors, all of which had a transition 

temperature higher than liquid nitrogen. 

Publication, patent, and commercialization efforts for 

the rare earth superconductors soon followed. On March 

16, Chu submitted a paper to the Physical Review Letters 

describing complete substitution of the rare earth elements in YBCO-123, which was published on May 4. J.A. 

5304–07. Hor and Meng are listed as first and second 

authors to the paper, and Chu is listed last. J.A. 5304. 

The article does not mention partial substitution of rare 

earth elements in YBCO-214. Id. 

On March 26, Chu submitted a continuation-in-part 

application which claimed partial and complete substitutions of the rare earth elements. This application eventually issued as the ’866 patent.

In 1988, DuPont licensed the technology relating to 

the ’418 and ’866 patents. Chu shared the proceeds 

evenly with the University of Houston, and then, out of 

his remaining portion, gave $137,000 to Hor and $137,000 

to Meng. 

Chu, Hor, and Meng continued to work together at the 

University of Houston. In 1992, Chu wrote a letter of 

recommendation for Hor in support of his promotion and 

tenure at the university. The recommendation stated 

that “Pei’s contributions to our research on high temperature superconducting (HTS) and related materials have 

been significant and numerous.” J.A. 5301–02. It also 

asserted that “[h]e and colleagues under his direction 

discovered the whole series of the so-called 123 compounds REBa2Cu3O7,” the compounds created by complete

rare earth substitution experiments. J.A. 5302.

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MENG v. CHU 7

Chu continued to publish articles on the rare earth

superconductors through the 1990s. Several of these 

articles make statements about the timing of the conception events discussed above. Relevant here, four articles

state that substitution of rare earth elements was undertaken after the chemical formula and structure of YBCO123 was known. J.A. 5113, 5334, 5342, 5355.

B 

Hor filed this action against Chu in December 2008, 

seeking correction of inventorship for the ’418 and ’866

patents under 35 U.S.C. § 256. Meng intervened in 

February 2010, also seeking correction of inventorship for 

the ’418 and ’866 patents. 

In January 2014, the district court held an eight-day 

bench trial on the merits. On January 21, 2015, the 

district court issued an order denying both Meng’s and 

Hor’s claims. With respect to Meng, the district court 

found that Meng had not met her burden under § 256 

because her testimony on who decided to use the solid 

state reaction method was “hopelessly at odds” with 

Chu’s, she had not presented enough factual evidence that 

she conceived of using this method, and she had not 

shown that her contribution exceeded the ordinary skill in 

the art. With respect to Hor, the district court found that 

he had not met his burden under § 256 with respect to the 

’418 patent because he did not have sufficient corroborating evidence, and that he had not met his burden with 

respect to the ’866 patent because “the evidence as to 

what was tested when, and by whom, is so conflicting that 

the Court cannot deem it clear and convincing.” J.A. 52.

Meng and Hor now appeal the district court’s decision. 

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a).

DISCUSSION

Section 256 provides for correction of inventorship on 

an issued patent. 35 U.S.C. § 256; MCV, Inc. v. King–

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8 MENG v. CHU

Seeley Thermos Co., 870 F.2d 1568, 1570 (Fed. Cir. 1989). 

Because issued patents are presumed to correctly name 

their inventors, the burden of proving nonjoinder of 

inventors is a “heavy one,” which must be demonstrated 

by clear and convincing evidence. See Hess v. Advanced 

Cardiovascular Sys., 106 F.3d 976, 980 (Fed. Cir. 1997). 

In order to prevail on a § 256 claim, an alleged co-inventor 

must show that he contributed to the conception of the 

claimed invention and that his contribution was “not 

insignificant in quality, when that contribution is measured against the dimension of the full invention.” Acromed Corp. v. Sofamor Danek Grp., 253 F.3d 1371, 1379 

(Fed. Cir. 2001). An alleged co-inventor’s testimony 

regarding his contribution must be corroborated, which 

courts assess under a “rule of reason” analysis. Ethicon, 

Inc. v. U.S. Surgical Corp., 135 F.3d 1456, 1461 (Fed. Cir. 

1998).

“Conception, and consequently inventorship, are questions of law” which we review de novo. Sewall v. Walters, 

21 F.3d 411, 415 (Fed. Cir. 1994). We review underlying 

factual determinations for clear error. Id. “Credibility 

determinations are entitled to strong deference.” Hess, 

106 F.3d at 980. 

On appeal, Hor challenges the district court’s denial of 

his claims to joint inventorship with respect to the ’866

patent. Meng challenges the district court’s denial of her 

claims to joint inventorship with respect to the ’418 and 

’866 patents. We address each challenge in turn.

A 

Hor contends that he made a significant contribution 

to the conception of the rare earth superconductors 

claimed in the ’866 patent because he initiated the complete replacement of Yttrium with Gadolinium on or 

around March 11. In support of this argument, Hor 

offers: (1) his own testimony that he conceived of complete 

replacement of Gadolinium; (2) testimony from Meng and 

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MENG v. CHU 9

other individuals associated with the HPLT lab, including 

Dr. Jeffrey Bechtold and Dr. Kenneth Forster; (3) documentary evidence, including Chu’s 1992 letter of recommendation and excerpts from Chu’s publications which 

state that Gadolinium replacement was undertaken after 

the chemical formula and structure of YBCO-123 were

determined; and (4) circumstantial evidence, including

the timing of the “surge” of synthesis activity in March 

1987, the timing of the continuation-in-part application 

and Chu’s Physical Review Letters paper (Chu’s first 

publication on rare earth substitutions, which was submitted after the Gadolinium substitutions that Hor claims 

credit for), the fact that Hor had been named a first

author on a publication, and the fact that Chu shared the 

proceeds of the DuPont license with Hor. Hor argues that 

this evidence corroborates his claim to have invented the 

rare earth superconductors in March, and thus satisfies 

his burden under § 256. 

Chu responds that the evidence cited by Hor is insufficient to meet his burden. In particular, Chu claims that 

Hor’s arguments ignore evidence that Chu had fully 

conceived of the ’866 patent before Hor’s Gadolinium 

experiments, first through the February partialsubstitution experiments and then through the March 

Europium and Samarium substitutions. Chu also attacks 

Hor’s corroborating witnesses as interested and/or lacking 

personal knowledge, and rebuts Hor’s other evidence as 

equivocal. 

We agree with Chu and the district court that, in light 

of the record evidence, Hor did not prove his claim for 

joint inventorship by clear and convincing evidence. As 

Hor and Chu agreed at oral argument, a lab notebook 

entry dated March 7, 1987 contained chemical formulas 

for the complete substitution of rare earth elements in 

YBCO-123. See Oral Argument at 15:35–45, 33:35–34:50; 

J.A. 5058–60. Hor does not claim responsibility for these 

formulas. See Cross-Appellant Br. 19 n.3; Oral Argument

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10 MENG v. CHU

at 15:35–45. Instead, the earliest date he cites for his 

version of the rare earth conception story is March 11, 

when he claims he instructed Meng to synthesize a compound by completely substituting Gadolinium for Yttrium

in YBCO-123. Cross-Appellant Br. 14. Accordingly, even 

if we accept Hor’s version of events, this would not be 

sufficient to establish that he was the first to conceive of 

complete rare earth substitution. 

Moreover, even if Hor cannot establish that he was 

the first to conceive of complete rare earth substitution, 

he has not otherwise provided clear and convincing evidence that he contributed to conception. “An alleged coinventor’s testimony, standing alone, cannot rise to the 

level of clear and convincing evidence; he must supply 

evidence to corroborate his testimony.” Symantec Corp. v. 

Computer Assocs. Int’l, Inc., 522 F.3d 1279, 1295 (Fed. 

Cir. 2008). The district court evaluated the entirety of 

Hor’s corroborating evidence and found it insufficient. 

J.A. 52. In particular, the district court found that Meng’s 

testimony was only “mildly persuasive,” that the lab 

records “do not conclusively point one way or the other,” 

and that circumstantial evidence such as Hor being 

named first author, the 1992 letter of recommendation, 

and DuPont payments were “just not especially convincing.” Id. 

We see no reason to disturb the district court’s assessment. Neither Dr. Forster nor Dr. Bechtold testified 

that Hor ordered (or even discussed) experiments to 

completely substitute Gadolinium for Yttrium in YBCO123, and, even though Meng testified to this fact, she is an 

interested witness and the district court found her testimony only “mildly persuasive.” J.A. 52. Chu’s 1992 letter 

of recommendation was written five years after the relevant time period and is a document designed to impart a 

favorable impression of Hor, not a neutral recitation of 

past events. Hor’s listing as first author and receipt of a 

portion of the DuPont proceeds at most show that he had 

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MENG v. CHU 11

a substantial involvement in the rare earth superconductor work at HPLT, but can neither prove nor disprove that 

he contributed to the specific idea of complete rare earth

substitutions. Finally, none of the remaining evidence 

cited by Hor provides any indication of the scope of his

personal involvement. For example, the alleged “surge” in 

synthesis activity (drawn from lab records which the 

district court found “do not conclusively point one way or 

the other,” J.A. 52) could just as easily support Chu’s 

contention that he initiated complete rare earth substitution experiments in March, as it could Hor’s. Accordingly, 

considering the record evidence as a whole, we are not 

persuaded that the district court erred in finding that Hor 

failed to provide sufficient corroboration. 

Because we agree with the district court that Hor did 

not meet his burden to show that he contributed to the 

conception of the rare earth superconductors in March 

1987, we need not reach Chu’s arguments that he conceived of the rare earth superconductors in February 

1987. We affirm the district court’s determination that 

Hor did not prove his claim to correction of inventorship 

under § 256 by clear and convincing evidence.

B 

Meng contends that she should be named a joint inventor of the ’418 and ’866 patents because she developed 

and implemented the solid state reaction methods by 

which the claimed superconducting compounds were 

synthesized. Meng asserts that her efforts, “through 

extensive experimentation and analysis, required more 

than the exercise of ordinary skill.” Appellant Br. 34. 

She emphasizes that Chu only provided her with general 

directions, and that she worked independently to come up 

with the specific steps for creating the superconducting 

compounds. 

Conception of a chemical compound “requires 

knowledge of both the specific chemical structure of the 

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12 MENG v. CHU

compound and an operative method of making it.” Fina 

Oil & Chem. Co. v. Ewen, 123 F.3d 1466, 1473 (Fed. Cir.

1997). However, where the operative method requires 

“nothing more than the use of ordinary skill in the art,” 

this “would not normally be a sufficient contribution to 

amount to an act of joint inventorship.” Falana v. Kent 

State Univ., 669 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2012). 

The district court considered Meng’s use of the solid 

state reaction method and concluded that “the evidence is 

not clear and convincing enough for the Court to find that 

suggesting [use of the solid state reaction method] was 

anything beyond that of ordinary skill in the profession.” 

J.A. 51. Although Meng asserts the contrary, she does not 

specifically explain what differentiates her efforts from 

what would have been the ordinary efforts of a skilled 

artisan. Meng seems to suggest that she exercised more 

than ordinary skill because she “worked independently” 

and engaged in “excessive experimentation,” but these are 

only characterizations of the organizational structure of 

the lab and the quantity of work that Meng performed, 

not the level of skill she exercised. Accordingly, we agree 

with the district court that Meng’s work does not exceed 

the level of ordinary skill in the art.

Given that Meng’s only asserted contribution to the 

’418 and ’866 patents does not, under the facts and circumstances of this case, rise to the level of an act of joint 

inventorship, her claims under § 256 fail. Because of this 

fatal flaw, we do not need to reach the remainder of 

Meng’s arguments, nor the district court’s decision with 

respect to corroboration. We affirm the district court’s 

determination that Meng did not prove her claim to 

correction of inventorship under § 256 by clear and convincing evidence. 

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MENG v. CHU 13

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district 

court’s determination that neither Hor nor Meng is entitled to correction of inventorship under § 256. 

AFFIRMED

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