What is the legal definition of “conception” in patent law?
According to MPEP 2138.04, conception in patent law is defined as “the complete performance of the mental part of the inventive act” and “the formation in the mind of the inventor of a definite and permanent idea of the complete and operative invention as it is thereafter to be applied in practice.” This definition comes from the case Townsend v. Smith, where the court stated:
“[C]onception is established when the invention is made sufficiently clear to enable one skilled in the art to reduce it to practice without the exercise of extensive experimentation or the exercise of inventive skill.”
This means that an inventor must have a clear and complete idea of the invention in their mind, including all its essential features, before it can be considered legally conceived.
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