Opinion ID: 480283
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Bey's Conception and Diligence

Text: 6 The board set forth the following standard for priority which Bey had to establish: 3 7 In order to prevail in this interference, Bey must establish by a preponderance of the evidence a conception of the invention defined by the count prior to June 1, 1977, the effective filing date of Kollonitsch, coupled with diligence from just prior to that date up to July 11, 1977, the filing date of his parent application.    8 The board found that Bey satisfied the first part of the test for priority because he established conception of the invention by at least March 10, 1977, prior to the effective filing date relied upon by Kollonitsch. 9 Bey claimed constructive reduction to practice, based on the filing of his patent application, on July 11, 1977. Thus, Bey had to show that he was reasonably diligent during the 41-day continuous critical period from May 31, 1977, a date just prior to the June 1, 1977, filing date of Kollonitsch's parent application, to July 11, 1977, the filing date of Bey's parent application. 10 Bey's case for diligence hinged on whether his patent attorney, Ruth Hattan (Hattan), had been reasonably diligent in preparing and filing the patent application during the 41-day critical period. During the critical period, Hattan worked on a group of 22 patent applications relating to irreversible enzyme inhibitors, including the parent to the present application. Bey argued to the board that Hattan's work on the closely related applications contributed substantially to the preparation of the present application. Thus, Bey argued that work on the related applications should be considered in determining whether Bey was reasonably diligent in filing the present application. 4 11 The irreversible enzyme inhibitors were invented by a small group of researchers at Richardson-Merrell, Inc., in Strasbourg, France. Bey presented unrebutted evidence that the irreversible enzyme inhibitors are interrelated in their chemistry, structure, and utility because they are similar derivatives of amino acids. 12 The supervisor of Richardson-Merrell's patent law department in Cincinnati, Ohio, selected Ruth Hattan, an experienced pharmaceutical patent attorney, to prepare the resulting patent applications. The supervisor testified that he chose to have one attorney handle the applications because of the closely related technology, the small number of inventors, and the required travel to the Strasbourg, France, location. 13 Hattan went to Strasbourg in January 1976, to obtain the necessary disclosure from the inventors. She returned to the United States and she subsequently prepared 22 patent applications, listing only four inventors with considerable overlap of inventorship. 14 A status report dated May 31, 1977, at the beginning of the critical period, showed that the 22 applications were in various stages of completion with expected filing dates between June 15 and August 15, 1977. Bey presented evidence that Hattan worked on the applications from this group on almost every working date in the critical period. There was no evidence that priority was given to any applications docketed after the group of 22 applications. Hattan traveled to Strasbourg again on June 25, 1977, for a conference with the inventors. In Strasbourg, she completed 16 of the patent applications, including the parent to the present application, and she mailed them from Strasbourg directly to the PTO, resulting in the filing date of July 11, 1977, for the present application. 15 In the present interference decision, the board found that Bey had failed to show diligence because Hattan had not documented sufficient specific activity on the present application, and Hattan could not show that the applications were taken up in chronological order. The board rejected Bey's argument that work on the related applications should be considered as diligence with respect to the present application. The board found that Bey failed to show that the irreversible enzyme inhibitor applications were sufficiently related, notwithstanding the unrebutted, corroborated evidence of the relationships between the applications. Thus, the board found that Bey had not exercised reasonable diligence, holding that Bey could not rely on his attorney's work on the other applications involving irreversible enzyme inhibitors. 16 The board noted that its decision was consistent with its decision in a previous interference between the same parties, where the board considered the same testimony and found that these applications were not sufficiently related. 5 Bey did not appeal from the previous interference decision, and we do not rule on that decision here. We note that neither the board nor the parties treated the previous decision on the related case issue as binding in the present case. Therefore, we must review the board's present decision for errors of law or clearly erroneous findings of fact on the basis of the record now before us. 6 Attorney Diligence A. Work on the Application in Question 17 Clearly, reasonable diligence can be shown if it is established that the attorney worked reasonably hard on the particular application in question during the continuous critical period. 7 With respect to the Bey application in this interference, it was established only that the application was to be typed as of May 31, 1977, and that the application was mailed to the PTO from Strasbourg on July 5, 1977. Bey argued that the 40-45 page application had to be typed, revised, proofread and/or finalized, mailed to the inventors in France for final review, and the formal documents signed and mailed to the PTO. Bey admitted, however, that Hattan's records did not show the exact days when activity specific to this application occurred. Thus, we cannot say that the board clearly erred in finding that the documented activities with regard to [the present application] are insufficient by themselves to prove diligence. 18 B. Work on Applications in Chronological Order 19 Of course, it may not be possible for a patent attorney to begin working on an application at the moment the inventor makes the disclosure, because the attorney may already have a backlog of other cases demanding his attention. Thus, the courts have recognized that reasonable diligence is all that is required of the attorney: 8 20 [I]t is not necessary that an inventor or his attorney should drop all other work and concentrate on the particular invention involved; and if the attorney has a reasonable backlog of work which he takes up in chronological order and carries out expeditiously, that is sufficient. 21 Generally, the patent attorney must show that unrelated cases are taken up in chronological order, thus, the attorney has the burden of keeping good records of the dates when cases are docketed as well as the dates when specific work is done on the applications. 9 22 In the present case, Hattan did not assign docket numbers to the cases in consecutive order, and she could not state the specific dates when the cases were docketed. Thus, the board was correct in finding that Bey failed to show that the cases were taken up in chronological order.