INVENTION
- Conception - the formation of a definite idea of the complete and operative invention, and
- Reduction to practice - the process of showing that the claimed invention works for its purpose.
In the absence of an actual reduction to practice, an invention is deemed to be "constructively" reduced to practice when a patent application is filed.
The rule is that complete conception is achieved when a person of ordinary skill in the relevant art could construct the invention without extensive research or experimentation.
Where the original conception is complete enough to enable another (the practitioner) to reduce the invention to practice with adding nothing more than routine skill, the contributor to the conception of the claimed invention, and not the practitioner, is an inventor.
"REDUCTION TO PRACTICE" is:
- the physical making of the invention and showing that it works for its intended purpose; or
- in the absence of actual reduction to practice, constructively reducing the invention to practice, pursuant to statute, when the patent application is filed with the USPTO.
For legal purposes, a constructive reduction to practice is considered equivalent to an actual reduction to practice.