Actual reduction to practice

After conceiving the invention, the inventor s next step is to reduce the invention to practice. A reduction to practice can be a constructive reduction to practice, which occurs when a patent application is filed. It can, however, also be an actual reduction to practice, which is the physical realization of the invention. For instance, in the case of a composition it includes the actual making thereof. With regard to aprocess, it includes the actual carrying out of the steps of the process. The determination that the invention will work for its intended purpose is usually also necessary. 

If a long time occurs between an actual reduction to practice (meaning the completion of the invention) and the filing of a patent application, then the concept of due diligence is not in play but rather the question becomes one of whether the inventor abandoned, suppressed, or concealed the invention. This possibility is covered separately by 102(c), which pertains to the abandonment of the invention and, more important, by 102(g) where, in a contest to prove who had invented the subject matter first (patent interference), a party found to have abandoned, suppressed, or concealed the invention can lose to a later-inventing party who did not commit one of those sins. More on these two sections later in this chapter. 

Let s review the law to see if the patent attorney should be so confident. In our discussion of section 102(a), we learned that prior invention could be proved by a reduction to practice before the reference date or a conception before a reference date followed by a period of due diligence until the actual or constructive reduction to practice. In the case of Chemist A, there was an actual reduction to practice that occurred when Chemist A synthesized the pigment and showed that it worked for its intended purpose, which occurred on September 26, 2007. The filing of the patent application is a constructive reduction to practice and would serve as a reduction to practice had an actual reduction to practice not occurred first. To use the conception date, however, Chemist A will need to show that he was diligent from the conception date to the date of the reduction to practice. If he is not able to show due diligence from the conception date to the reduction to practice, he will not be able to mark the conception date as the date of the invention. Instead, the date of the invention is... 

In reference to the second point, an item can be ready for patenting if it has already been actually reduced to practice. However, an actual reduction to practice is not necessary if the invention being sold is capable of being reduced to practice without extraordinary effort or skill—for example, if the inventor has prepared descriptions or drawings of such specificity to enable one of ordinary skill to practice the invention.36... 

The second method claim was evidenced by an actual reduction to practice when the testing to establish the anticholinesterase utility took place July 15, 2006. 

As we already learned, reduction to practice can be actual or constructive. Actual reduction to practice refers to the production of the invention in a physical, tangible form that contains every element of the claim corresponding to that invention.28 Furthermore, an actual reduction to practice requires that the invention has been sufficiently tested to demonstrate that it will work for its intended purpose. In contrast, a constructive reduction to practice means that the invention is described in such a way that one of ordinary skill in the art can make and use the invention without undue experimentation, even though an actual working example has not been prepared— perhaps a well-detailed scheme or drawing is sufficient. In this case, one does not actually need to physically make the invention. A constructive reduction to practice normally occurs on the filing of a patent application since the patent application must, to be valid, provide sufficient instruction to allow one of ordinary skill ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention without undue experimentation in the same way as a constructive reduction to practice requires. 

Corroboration is the major hurdle confronting an inventor attempting to prove actual reduction to practice. The statements of an inventor are not believable as an absolute matter of law. Everything to which he testifies must be corroborated by someone other than a coinventor having actual knowledge of the events (20). Ideal corroboration would be provided by someone unassociated with the inventor who completely duplicates the inventor s work or does all work under the direction of the inventor. 

Generally, in the United States, the party who is first to "reduce an invention to practice" is given priority and awarded the patent, unless another party who reduced the invention to practice at a later date can prove that he or she was the first to conceive the invention and worked diligently to reduce it to practice from a time before the other party s date of conception (13). Reduction to practice may be an "actual reduction to practice" (physically making or carrying out the invention) or a "constructive reduction to practice" (filing a patent application). Therefore, in the United States, at least in theory, the filing date of an... 

Actual reduction to practice is not required for fihng a patent application. They only need to teach one skilled in the art how to make and use the invention. The bottom line is that so long as the paper examples are scientifically reasonable (that is, they do not offend the chemist s chemical sense), the PTO will consider them to have been performed. One caveat is that should an interference proceeding arise, it might be necessary to show that paper example compounds can really be produced as described, but again, the odds of an interference occurring are very low and good product yields wouldn t be required even then. 

There are two questions we will explore for this scenario. First, on what date (or dates) was the chemist s reduction to practice and were they actual or constructive reductions to practice Second, what date(s) of invention can the chemist establish for each of the claims ... 

Likewise, merely providing technical assistance to facilitate the reduction to practice of an invention does not qualify one as an inventor unless the reduction to practice itself required inventive contribution that became part of the claimed invention. In a common scenario that often occurs in the chemical industry, one person may propose a compound or set of compounds or a particular composition that she wishes to see made and tested for a given property or activity. The actual production of the compound or set of compounds may ultimately be carried out by a different person. At first blush, one might guess that the person who proposed the compound(s) for the particular activities is the one who conceived the invention and the chemists synthesizing the desired compounds were technical support providing the actual reduction... 

A second exception in the USA which influences the effective priority date of an invention (but not the official priority of the patent ) is the so-called swearing-back according to the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 37 (37 CFR, 1.131). If there is an interference with other patents or patent applications, the US patent authority will ask the applicant of USA-derived inventions to provide detailed information on the actual time of conception of the invention, reduction to practice and on all further steps which finally led to the current application. Proof of those activities can be provided by laboratory notebooks and other relevant documents, e.g. those which prove the involvement of a patent attorney during the process of drafting and filing the application in question. This information will be considered in order to assess the effective time when the invention was made and when it was reduced to practice in order to fulfil the requirements for patentability. 

One area for increases in sensitivity that has not been widely exploited is in the PTH detection system. Most commercial instruments use HPLC columns with internal cross sections of 2.1 mm, allowing flow rates of 200-350 pL/min. The introduction of the use of these columns provided an increase in sensitivity over the use of 4.6 mm columns, which were run at higher flow rates. This was a result of delivering the PTH analyte to the detector flow cell in a smaller volume, hence higher local concentration, and an increase in signal to noise. Reports have been made of PTH separations on smaller diameter columns both in the published literature (9,10), as well as commercial brochures, but extensive reports of reduction to practice in actual sequencer runs have not been made. 

During the pilot phase it has hecoine evident that activities implemented jointly tace problems ot a practical nature. In particular, it is difficult to establish the basis ot reference (i.e., the emissions prior to the joint implementation) and to verify the actual reductions to be credited WBGU. Study, Targets for Climate Protection, t997, 27. 

An idea or conception, alone, does not constitute an invention. Under U.S. patent law, an inventor must maintain momentum in proceeding from conception to an experiment which illustrates that the discovery works, i.e. completes the invention. The technical expression is to exercise diligence. The experimental confirmation of the idea is called reduction to practice of the inventive concept. The significance of these terms is that you may not merely record an idea and then allow it to remain fallow you must follow through by actually performing, or having someone else perform, the necessary experiment to demonstrate that the idea works. ... 

Allowing dose reductions or drug holidays will possibly keep patients in a trial and avoid them dropping out, in addition to providing a closer model to what will actually happen in practice in real life. Continued follow-up for patients who withdraw from medication should also be considered (sometimes referred to as partial withdrawal) and this will give much more flexibility when it comes to analysing the data once the trial is complete. 

It is possible and beneficial to reduce the system to index-one by replacing A with a new dependent variable , where A = 3/31 [13], The initial condition for is arbitrary, since itself never appears in the equations—a suitable choice is 4> = 0. Anywhere A appears, it is simply replaced with 3/31, which is conveniently done in the DAE software interface. The index reduction can be seen from the following procedure The continuity at the inlet boundary (an algebraic constraint) can be differentiated once with respect to t to yield an equation for dV/dt. Then dV/dt is replaced by substitution of the radial-momentum equation. This substitution introduces A = 34>/31, which makes the continuity equation (at the inlet boundary) an independent differential equation for 4>. Thus the modified system is index-one. This set of substitutions is not actually done in practice—it simply must be possible to do them to achieve the index reduction. 

The three prerequisites of patentable invention are novelty, unobviousness, and utility. Proof of utility is basic to reduction. As a general rule, a substance is reduced to practice when it is actually produced unless its usefulness is not apparent from its ingredients, chemical structure, or manner of production, in which case the material s utility must be demonstrated by proper tests 15). 

Therefore, many alternatives for the ferrous sulfamate reduction method have been studied(1,2,3) besides, the use of U(IY) as the reductant has actually found some practical application. Since U(IY) is being prepared by means of electrolytic reduction of U(VI)t it is natural to go a step further, namely, to introduce electrolytic reduction to the process stream itself. In such an in-sltu electrolytic process, not only P(IY) would be expected to be directly reduciable to Pu(III), but any U(IY) formed would also be expected to serve as the reductant for Pu(IV). 

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