Simultaneous invention

While we have focused extensively on unexpected results as one of the secondary considerations of nonobviousness, there are several additional considerations that can be argued. In this opinion, the Court addressed these several additional secondary considerations of nonobviousness as well. These additional important factors include commercial success, simultaneous invention, fulfillment of long-felt need, prior failure, others copying of the invention, third-party praise and recognition, and skepticism of persons skilled in the art. 

The next secondary consideration that the Court took up was near simultaneous invention. If two or more separate inventors almost simultaneously discover an invention, this can be regarded as secondary evidence that the invention is obvious. Mylan presented evidence that multiple other groups had synthesized levofloxacin within one year after the inventors of the challenged patent. The Court only assigned moderate emphasis to this secondary evidence, however, because Mylan provided no corroborating evidence as to the exact date of four out of five of the near simultaneous discoveries. This was an issue because one of the inventors of the patents in suit published on some of levofloxacin s properties and general resolution methods soon after they made their discovery of levofloxacin. Thus it was not clear whether the near-simultaneous invention from the other four groups was due to the obviousness of the invention at that time or because of the inventor s own disclosure.85... 

The great acceleration of interest in solids with high ionic conductivity was stimulated by the report of Yao and Kummer in 1967 that sodium /3-alumina has a sodium ion conductivity at room temperature comparable to that of an aqueous sodium chloride solution. The simultaneous invention of the sodium//3-alumina/sulfur battery by the same group intensified interest in the commercial application of solids with high ionic conductivity. 

U.S. patent law establishing entitlement to a patent in the case of essentially simultaneous invention is different from the law of substantially all other countries throughout the world. Nearly all countries award the patent to the first party who files a patent application (i.e., the first-to-file rule) (12). The United States, however, follows the first-to-invent rule whereby, at least in theory, the first to invent is generally entitled to the patent, even though he or she was not the first to file a patent application. Thus, it is possible that one party (i.e., the first to invent) who loses the race to the PTO may be entitled to patent protection in the United States, whereas another party (i.e., the first to file) may be entitled to patent protection for the... 

The latter process may have been an example of simultaneous invention. Ernest L. LeSueur (1869-1953) was born in Ottawa. While enrolled in M.I.T. s Electrical Engineering course, he invented a diaphragm cell for the electrolysis of salt, which was widely used. 

The development of the ideas mentioned above has taken place over more than a century, in 1890, it was not yet clear what electrical conduction was. The electron had not quite been defined. Metals were known to conduct electricity in accord with Ohm s law, and aqueous ionic solutions were known to conduct larger entities called ions. Nernst then made the breakthrough of observing various types of conduction in stabilised zirconia, that is zirconium oxide doped with several mole per cent of calcla, magnesia, yttria, etc. Nernst found that stabilised zirconia was an insulator at room temperature, conducted ions in red hot conditions, from 600 to 1000°C and then became an electronic and ionic conductor at white heat, around 1500°C, He patented an incandescent electric light made from a zirconia filament and sold this invention which he had been using to illuminate his home [1-3], He praised the simultaneous invention of the telephone because it enabled him to call his wife to switch on the light device while he travelled back from the university. The heat-up time was a problem even then [4],... 

It should be noted that nearly simultaneously with Obemuiller, A. Dupre invented a very simi lar method (Ref 8, p 245), and that Taliani s method [GazzChimltal 51, I, 184 (1921)] can be considered an improvement over that of Obermtiller... 

Emert Also known as the Gulf process, the University of Arkansas process, and SSF. A process for converting cellulose to ethanol by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation. Invented by G. H. Emert. 

Imperial Smelting A process for simultaneously extracting zinc and lead from sulfide ores, developed and commercialized by the Imperial Smelting Corporation at Avonmouth, UK, after World War II, and now widely used. Based on an invention by L. J. Derham in which the vapors emerging from a reducing kiln are rapidly quenched in a shower of droplets of molten lead. The first trial was made in 1943 but most of the development work was done from 1945 to 1947. Eleven plants were operating in 1973. 

Radiance A process for removing organic contaminants from the surfaces of semiconductors by irradiation with deep ultraviolet light while simultaneously passing an inert gas over the surface in laminar flow. Invented by A. Englesberg in 1987 and developed by Radiance Services Company, Bethesda, MD. 

In contrast, Bohr s use of the word "shells" and Langmuir s use of the term "sheaths" in place of "orbits" discarded the old gravitational analogy for electron energy levels and electron motions. Mulliken s invention of the word "orbital" self-consciously fit his theory within the old physical tradition going back to Newton but simultaneously asserted the discovery of a new theory to inaugurate a "Mulliken era" in chemistry. We have specifically... 

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