There are precious few opportunities to be able to write about the Doctrine of Inurement in inter partes review proceedings (or otherwise, for that matter). So, we take the opportunity here to consider the doctrine, in a design patent context, with the Board’s decision in Sensio, Inc. v. Select Brands, Inc., IPR2013-00580. In Sensio, the Board rejected Patent Owner’s attempt to antedate 102(a) prior art under the Doctrine of Inurement, finding that insufficient evidence supported a finding that the work of a third party inured to the benefit of Patent Owner.

More specifically, Patent Owner argued that it had communicated the design of the subject matter later claimed in the subject patent (design for a multiple-crock buffet server) to a third party for manufacture of a prototype. The first prototype was then manufactured and sent to Patent Owner by the third party months prior to the date of the prior art references relied upon in this challenge. There were no design changes in taking the prototype to the present day commercial model. Decision at 6-7. Patent Owner, assuming conception was established by photographs of the prototype and business records, argued that reduction to practice was achieved prior to the date of the prior art, as evidenced by several commercial product description documents which antedate the prior art by a few months. Id. at 7-8.

Petitioner responded by rebutting Patent Owner’s argument the doctrine of inurement applied (that acts by others working explicitly or implicitly at the inventor’s request will inure to the inventor’s benefit). The first requirement of inurement is that the inventor must have conceived of the invention prior to involving the third party. Petitioner argued: (1) because a third party (rather than the inventors) built the prototypes, there was no reduction to practice; (2) Patent Owner did not show that the third party building the prototypes inures to Patent Owner’s benefit; and (3) the photographs of the prototype produced by the third party were insufficiently clear to establish conception of the design by the inventors prior to involvement of the third party. Id. at 8-9.

After rejecting Patent Owner’s argument that the foundational case law of the doctrine of inurement does not apply to design patents (only to utility patents), the Board narrowed the key issue to whether the third-party-built prototypes inure to Patent Owner’s benefit.  Id. at 10.  The Board began by rejecting Patent Owner’s assumption that conception had taken place, and stated that Patent Owner had not, in fact, shown that conception of the claim design happened before the prior art date. The Board based this finding on a lack of corroboration of the inventor’s testimony regarding conception.  Id.at 12-13.  Patent Owner’s submission of various business records and product descriptions were inadequate, as they did not address the claimed ornamental design and focused more on the commercial product and its technical specifications.  Further, the Board weighed the fact there was no evidence of record which showed correspondence between Patent Owner and third party prior to production of the design prototype.  Id.  at 14.

Accordingly, the Board found that Patent Owner had not adequately shown that it invented the claimed design prior to the prior art date, and allowed the references at issue as prior art under 102(a).  Id. at 14.