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Congress to Overhaul Patent Law
karvind writes "According to story at law.com, 'lawmakers in Washington are considering changes to the patent code that would bring U.S. law closer to intellectual property standards in the rest of the industrialized world.' The stated result of Patent Reform Act of 2005, HR 2795 is supposed to make the system work 'more efficiently' and be 'less prone to litigation.'"
Bottom line. Bad. Bad. Bad.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Totally and completely wrong.
There seems to be a misconception on this site over what the terms "first to file" and "first to invent" actually mean. I'll clear it up.
Let's say there are two inventors. Inventor A invents his product on January 1, 2005. Inventor B invents the exact same product on January 10, 2005. Inventor B gets a patent application filed on February 1, 2005. Inventor A incurs a slight delay and files a patent application on March 1, 2005.
In a "first to file" country, the question of who invented the product is simple--whoever files the application first is the inventor. Therefore, Inventor B obtains the Patent and Inventor A is SOL.
In a "first to invent" country, circumstances are different. The patent office will tell Inventor A that Inventor B invented it first because he filed the application first. But if Inventor A can prove that he actually invented it first, Inventor A gets the patent, not Inventor B.
These two terms have absolutely nothing to do with prior art. If inventor Z invented the same device on December 1, 2004, but chose not to file a patent application, he can still show that neither Inventor A nor Inventor B deserve the patent because Inventor Z is the actual inventor of the product.
1st to file means no more interference practice at the USPTO - 2 companies no longer get to argue about "who invented it first."
The US is one of the few (if only) remaining countries that uses a "first to invent" system.
It does NOT mean 1st to file gets awarded a patent in spite of prior art. You can still invalidate a patent issued to the "first person to file." But once a first person files, no one else can get a patent for that same invention even if they invented it first, since they were not "first to file."