【發明人】申請人及發明人主體（二）

申請人及發明人主體（二）

Because "[c]onception is the touchstone of inventorship," each joint inventor must generally contribute to the conception of the invention. Burroughs Wellcome Co. v. Barr Labs., Inc., 40 F.3d 1223, 1227-28 (Fed. Cir. 1994). Additionally, courts require corroborating evidence of conception. Id. at 1228. However, contribution to one claim is sufficient to be a co-inventor. Ethicon, Inc. v. U.S. Surgical Corp., 135 F.3d 1456, 1460 (Fed. Cir. 1998). Conception is defined as "the `formation in the mind of the inventor, of a definite and permanent idea of the complete and operative invention, as it is hereafter to be applied in practice.'" Hybritech Inc. v. Monoclonal Antibodies, Inc., 802 F.2d 1367, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (citation omitted). Conception is complete when "the idea is so clearly defined in the inventor's mind that only ordinary kill would be necessary to reduce the invention to practice, without extensive research or experimentation." Burroughs Wellcome, 40 F.3d at 1228.（資料來源）

可參照此篇（或備份）文章，更清楚了解誰才是發明人。

能夠提供Conception的人才是發明人，所以僅是（1）提出應被解決的問題、希望得到的結果、籠統的解決方法；或（2）將發明具體化（具以實施（reduction to practice））的皆非發明人。

關於共同發明人

A joint invention is the product of collaboration of the inventive endeavors of two or more persons working toward the same end and producing an invention by their aggregate efforts. To constitute a joint invention, it is necessary that each of the inventors work on the same subject matter and make some contribution to the inventive thought and to the final result. Each needs to perform but a part of the task if an invention emerges from all of the steps taken together. It is not necessary that the entire inventive concept should occur to each of the joint inventors, or that the two should physically work on the project together. One may take a step at one time, the other an approach at different times. One may do more of the experimental work while the other makes suggestions from time to time. The fact that each of the inventors plays a different role and that the contribution of one may not be as great as that of another, does not detract from the fact that the invention is joint, if each makes some original contribution, though partial, to the final solution of the problem.

因此有collaboration才算是共同發明人，各自努力而達到相同的結果，不能稱為共同發明人，所謂的collaboration不必然是發生在相同的時間，且其可能情況如：「seeing a relevant report and building upon it」或「hearing another's suggestion at a meeting」。

MPEP（2137.01 Inventorship [R-3] - 2100 Patentability）中提供更多的解譯：
The inventive entity for a particular application is based on some contribution to at least one of the claims made by each of the named inventors. "Inventors may apply for a patent jointly even though (1) they did not physically work together or at the same time, (2) each did not make the same type or amount of contribution, or (3) each did not make a contribution to the subject matter of every claim of the patent." 35 U.S.C. 116. "[T]he statute neither states nor implies that two inventors can be 'joint inventors' if they have had no contact whatsoever and are completely unaware of each other"s work." What is required is some "quantum of collaboration or connection." In other words, " [f]or persons to be joint inventors under Section 116, there must be some element of joint behavior, such as collaboration or working under common direction, one inventor seeing a relevant report and building upon it or hearing another's suggestion at a meeting." Kimberly-Clark Corp. v. Procter & Gamble Distrib. Co., 973 F.2d 911, 916-17, 23 USPQ2d 1921, 1925-26 (Fed. Cir. 1992); Moler v. Purdy, 131 USPQ 276, 279 (Bd. Pat. Inter. 1960) ("it is not necessary that the inventive concept come to both [joint inventors] at the same time").


關於「the doctrine of simultaneous conception and reduction to practice」（參見Fina Oil V. Ewen 資料來源）
That doctrine states that in some instances, an inventor may only be able to establish a conception by pointing to a reduction to practice through a successful experiment. See Amgen Inc. v. Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., 927 F.2d 1200, 1206, 18 USPQ2d 1016, 1021 (Fed. Cir. 1991).The doctrine of simultaneous conception and reduction to practice applies to the conception of the entire invention. Thus, it is applied in priority disputes to determine priority of conception as between one patent or application and another application.

Conception and reduction to practice of the entire claimed invention may be relevant to establish that a first person conceived of an invention before another person entered the scene, and that the first person is therefore the sole inventor. However, the doctrine cannot be used, as the district court did here, to show that because the first person did not conceive or reduce to practice the entire claimed invention, he or she did not at least contribute in some significant way to the ultimate conception.

“the doctrine of simultaneous conception and reduction to practice”係用來決定誰是第一發明人，但欲無法被適用於決定誰是發明人（he or she did not at least contribute in some significant way to the ultimate conception）。