The district court also correctly determined that the record established Ethicon’s “reasonable continuing activity” to reduce the invention to practice from April 1996 to the filing of the application in October 1997. Ethicon’s design changes therefore do not preclude the district court’s finding of prior conception. This idea persisted despite Ethicon’s limited design changes to only the cam mechanism and blade size, which is not a feature that the twenty-six anticipated claims recite. Based on this evidence and corroborating testimony, there was a “definite and permanent idea” of an ultrasonic surgical device that could cut and coagulate and fit down a five millimeter trocar. He Ethicon Prototype, originated by Ultracision and perfected by Ethicon, existed in the form of detailed drawings and physical embodiments in 1996, before Tyco’s conception date of January 1997. The filing of a patent application is constructive reduction to practice of the invention disclosed therein, and failing to file such an application within a reasonable time after first making the invention may constitute such abandonment, suppression, or concealment. there was reasonably continuing activity to reduce the invention to practice.” And, the inventor must not abandon, suppress, or conceal the invention after he or she reduces it to practice. ” To establish diligence in reduction to practice, the “basic inquiry is whether. Under § 102(g), Ethicon can establish that its Prototype was prior art by proving “either that it reduced its invention to practice first or that it conceived of the invention first and was diligent in reducing it to practice.” “he test for conception is whether the inventor had an idea that was definite and permanent enough that one skilled in the art could understand the invention.” Though the inventor should have “a specific, settled idea,” the inventor “need not know that his invention will work for conception to be complete. § 103, and that other claims of these patents were invalid as anticipated under 35 U.S.C. 6,468,286, which related to a surgical device that employs ultrasonic energy to cut and coagulate tissue in surgery, were not invalid due to obviousness under 35 U.S.C. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Prost,* Reyna, Hughes) affirmed-in-part, reversed-in-part, and vacated-in-part the district court’s judgment that certain claims of U.S. On December 4, 2014, in Tyco Healthcare Grp. “either § 102(g) nor § 103 make prior reduction to practice the only avenue through which § 102(g) prior art can constitute prior art under § 103.”
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