Start Date
4-1968 8:00 AM
Description
The legal concept of actual reduction to practice can be a significant factor in obtaining patent protection for an invention. It is well established that to prove actual reduction to practice, it must be shown the invention worked as intended in its practical contemplated use; and the acts relied on for reduction to practice cannot occur in a foreign country.
To show that an invention worked as intended in its practical contemplated use, a complete operative embodiment must be constructed and subjected to some degree of testing; and depending on the circumstances this testing may be under conditions of actual use; in a simulated environment which duplicates the essential conditions of actual use, or in some instances it may be bench testing which does not simulate all the conditions of actual use. The type and degree of testing necessary to show reduction to practice is discussed, with emphasis on inventions intended to be used in a space environment.
Consideration is also given to situations where an invention may have been first actually reduced to practice in outer space, and whether this can be used to establish a date of invention under United States patent law. The extent of territorial sovereignty in the airspace above a nation's boundaries is considered, along with the ramification of operation of the invention beyond this territorial sovereignty. It is concluded that reduction to practice in outer space is tantamount to reduction to practice in the United States, based on one of two theories: the operation of an integrated instrumentality, wherein the invention is not removed from the United States by reason of the spacecraft being necessarily distant; and a free space doctrine, wherein occurrences onboard the spacecraft remain under the jurisdiction and control of the launching or registrynation.
Reduction to Practice of Space Inventions
The legal concept of actual reduction to practice can be a significant factor in obtaining patent protection for an invention. It is well established that to prove actual reduction to practice, it must be shown the invention worked as intended in its practical contemplated use; and the acts relied on for reduction to practice cannot occur in a foreign country.
To show that an invention worked as intended in its practical contemplated use, a complete operative embodiment must be constructed and subjected to some degree of testing; and depending on the circumstances this testing may be under conditions of actual use; in a simulated environment which duplicates the essential conditions of actual use, or in some instances it may be bench testing which does not simulate all the conditions of actual use. The type and degree of testing necessary to show reduction to practice is discussed, with emphasis on inventions intended to be used in a space environment.
Consideration is also given to situations where an invention may have been first actually reduced to practice in outer space, and whether this can be used to establish a date of invention under United States patent law. The extent of territorial sovereignty in the airspace above a nation's boundaries is considered, along with the ramification of operation of the invention beyond this territorial sovereignty. It is concluded that reduction to practice in outer space is tantamount to reduction to practice in the United States, based on one of two theories: the operation of an integrated instrumentality, wherein the invention is not removed from the United States by reason of the spacecraft being necessarily distant; and a free space doctrine, wherein occurrences onboard the spacecraft remain under the jurisdiction and control of the launching or registrynation.
Comments
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