Slashdot Mirror
Legislation To Overhaul US Patent System
FutureDomain sends us to a PC World report on the filing yesterday of legislation to overhaul the US patent system completely. The US has the only system worldwide that tries to ascertain who first invented a thing — everywhere else the criterion is who filed first, and the new legislation would bring the US into line. Identical bills were introduced in both the House and the Senate by, in each case, bipartisan sponsors. The corporate roster of backers includes Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, and nearly everyone else. From the article: "The provisions of the Patent Reform Act would... restrict damages that patent holders can receive for infringement lawsuits, create a new procedure to challenge the validity of a patent after it has been granted, and boost resources for the US Patent and Trademark Office."
No. Prior art stays the same. If anyone has published a the same idea before it is not patentable (in theory, in practice USPO will still not check it),
The old system just had the option of companies not filing patents and not publishing their results could come in and claim they invented the idea first.
The new system is much less corrupt and more open.
In the rest of the world published prior art still disallows patents.
Filed first is just the decider when two applications are made for the same invention (which was secret until the applications).
In most of the world the person who gets to the patent office first gets the patent and the one who gets there second gets nothing. In the US you can claim that you invented it before the other party and try to prove it with dated notes etc. which were previously not published. In theory the first to have the invention gets the patent not the first to file. This leads to messy legal fights.
In the rest of the world the incentive is to file (and therefore publish) first which gives a clearer decision on this issue.
Joseph