Its Best to Disclose Best Mode

Go Medical Industries PTY, Ltd v. Inmed Corp., [05-1241, -1267, -1588](October 27, 2006)[MICHEL, Archer, and Linn] The Federal Circuit affirmed invalidity of Go’s patent on a urinary catheter on the grounds that the inventors failure to disclose the best mode in the priority application prevented Go from claiming priority to the application. The inventor admitted that certain dimensions were critical to the invention, and that he avoided any comment about the length because he was “aware that the numbers would become limiting themselves”. The inventor further testified that it too a few weeks experiments to define the dimensions, which supported the conclusion that the best mode was indeed omitted from the priority application.