Michael S. Brown, Joseph L. Goldstein, and Yuval Reiss v. Mariano Barbacid and Veeraswamy Manne

PAULINE NEWMAN, Circuit Judge.

This appeal of an invention priority determination, called a patent “interference” proceeding, returns to the Federal Circuit from the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (the “Board”) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The parties are Michael Brown, Joseph Gold-stein and Yuval Reiss (together “Brown”) and Mariano Barbacid and Veeraswamy Manne (together “Barbacid”). The invention common to Brown and Barbacid is a method or assay for identifying compounds that inhibit farnesyl transferase (“FT”), an enzyme involved in the control of cell…