Actually, by "innocent", the summary is referring to defendants who have not downloaded the porn - that is, people who are actually innocent of copyright infringement.
The problem is that if the porn companies screwed up and have a bunch of wrong IP addresses in addition to correct ones (that is, people who did download the porn as well as people who didn't), the people at the end of the wrong IP addresses will still get a letter threatening a lawsuit in which they will be publicly accused of downloading "bareback college studs" (or whatever) unless they pay up two thousand dollars. Regardless of whether they're innocent, most people would rather pay up (and keep the whole thing secret) than mount an expensive legal defense.
Most federal judges are not impressed with this "settlement extortion" legal strategy, and aren't letting porn companies (and similar plaintiffs) get away with this on the cheap. What I mean by that is, the porn companies* are getting people's names and addresses, which they need to send the threatening letters and settlement demands, by suing thousands of defendants at the same time. Not only is this very questionable so far as the rules of civil procedure, they also only pay one filing fee even though they're essentially suing thousands of people. The courts would really prefer that the porn companies pay the $350 filing fee for each defendant they sue, because these massive lawsuits generate huge amounts of paper work, and clog up the system to the detriment of other lawsuits that are perhaps actually about obtaining justice rather than extorting settlements.
*there's reason to believe that the porn companies don't really care that much, and these massive lawsuits are instigated by a handful of lawyers who think they've found an easy way to hack the legal system and make a bunch of money. These lawyers do these suits on a contingency basis - that is, the porn companies aren't actually paying the lawyers to file the law suits; instead, they split whatever profits they get from settlements.
Federal judges are protected by article III of the Constitution, and cannot be removed from office except by impeachment. Many judges never really retire, either, they just become "senior" judges with reduced case loads. They are nominated for their offices by the president and confirmed by the senate.
They aren't free of corruption (see Justice Thomas, or more specifically, his wife), but the federal judiciary is remarkably free from corporate pressure, and it really is the closest thing the USA has to a bastion of liberty and freedom.
but make sure the spaces close to the entrance never completely fill up [streetfilms.org].
The dude in your link suggests that you can keep one or two open spaces by setting the right price for parking - set the price high enough to deter some people from parking there.
So, you're suggesting charging more for spots near the entrance to buildings? And requiring people who need handicapped spots, because they're handicapped, to pay for it?
I do feel ashamed that the first I heard of this natural disaster / tragedy is from a news story about the price of hard drives. Thanks for drawing attention to the important part of this story.
If you are hungry and have $1 only and this stake is $5, it doesn't mean that you have a 'moral' right to that stake.
If steak is the only, or cheapest, food source, then you *do* have a moral right to the steak.* You just don't have the resources to afford it.
Face it - markets may be efficient in terms of short-term allocation of money value, but they are blind to morality. If you accept market outcomes as always being the "best" outcome, then you're ignoring moral values. It's up to you to decide if moral values are important to you.
*assuming that human life is morally superior to money. Everyone else who is hungry also has a moral right to the steak. The greatest moral right presumably goes to whoever is hungriest / most in need of nutrition to survive.
That's an excellent point, and I'd mod up if I had points.
Facebook can sublicense your info to a third party ("you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook"), but that sub sublicense necessarily terminates when facebook's does - when/if you remove the info ("This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account..."), though there may be a loophole if you've "shared" the info with others ("...unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it"). What does "shared with others" mean? I dunno, but I imagine it means posting on a friends wall, or something of that sort.
"that one year exemption will only apply to win it's signed."
What does that mean?
"it will severally hamper in attempt I make to get investor in on my inventions"
What does this mean?
"that could, quite literally, take my idea and patent it and I have NO RECOURSE"
If they take your idea and try to patent it, you can sue them. When someone files a patent app, that person has to swear under oath that he/she invented the invention. If you can show that you invented it, and they stole your idea, then they're in deep shit. Their patent app is invalid, and you can file your own if you wish/if you have the money/investors.
So, you do have a recourse.
Plus, before you show a patentable idea to anyone, you need to get them to sign an NDA. This is standard practice.
Patent applications are rejected all the time. The problem is that the "inventor" (I.e., whatever company is backing the patent application) can revise the application, so as to avoid whatever got it rejected previously. Applications go through a lot of rejections - sometimes a dozen or more - before finally being approved. I've heard the statistic that 9 out of 10 applications are eventually approved... But it takes years and a lot of "rejections" to get there.
And, by the way, this means that patent examiners spend a lot of time reviewing applications. The process involves a lot of back and forth between the examiner and the inventor. I'm not going to vouch for their competency in the field, but it's unfair to say that examiners don't spend the time to understand the product, or don't know enough about it before approving the patent.
Prior art doesn't have to be on the market - it has to be available to the public in some way, whether via the market, or published somewhere, or patented already (not necessarily in the US), etc. Open source software, if it's available online, is published... Or at least available to the public. So, it would be prior art, if it is indeed prior to the supposed invention.
Prior art is an invention that -was patented -described in a printed publication -in public use -on sale or -otherwise available to the public.
The courts have determined that offering an invention for sale - regardless of whether it's openly on sale to consumers or only sold in private contracts - constitutes prior art, because otherwise, an inventor could sell the invention privately for a long time, and only patent it (and get the full patent term) when the inventor fears that someone else is close to patenting the same thing.
In other words, construing "on sale" to mean only "public sales" would allow an inventor to benefit from patent law for longer than the patent term. You have a choice - you can protect your invention by patent law, or you can protect it by trade secret law. Not both.
Then how would this be different from what we already have?
Compare the new law, posted in GP, with the current law:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless— (a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent, or (b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States, or... (d) the invention was first patented or caused to be patented, or was the subject of an inventor’s certificate, by the applicant or his legal representatives or assigns in a foreign country prior to the date of the application for patent in this country on an application for patent or inventor’s certificate filed more than twelve months before the filing of the application in the United States, or (e) the invention was described in (1) an application for patent, published under section 122(b), by another filed in the United States before the invention by the applicant for patent or (2) a patent granted on an application for patent by another filed in the United States before the invention by the applicant for patent, except that an international application filed under the treaty defined in section 351(a) shall have the effects for the purposes of this subsection of an application filed in the United States only if the international application designated the United States and was published under Article 21(2) of such treaty in the English language;
Other than the first paragraph, about publishing before patenting, GP's post is insightful. You should stick with correcting/clarifying posts you disagree with, not slamming them.
That's where the "lawyereze" comes in. Is my "I invented a banana peeler" provisional patent the same thing as "1) a device for peeling elongated fruits utilizing a metallic thingamabobber 2) Claim 1 wherein the thingamabobber is made of plasic 3) Claim 1 wherein the thingamabobber is made of magma 4)..."?
Provisional applications contain only the specification, not the claims. All you have to do is describe the invention, you don't have to pin down exactly what the patent would protect. A patent lawyer is still a good idea when writing up the spec, but such help is not nearly as crucial as writing claims.
first-to-file systems generally have "prior use" defenses.
That does not appear to be the case in this new legislation, which I think is a serious problem. However, the legislation does call for the USPTO director to issue a report on prior use defenses in other countries. Maybe the report will prompt congress to add a prior use defense.
As far as I know, first to invent only goes back one year. That it the most you can back-date an invention.
Nope, you can backdate an invention as far as you have records for, though you might run the risk of having "abandoned" the invention if you invented it 10 years ago, sat on it, and only bothered to patent it recently.. The year requirement you're thinking of is probably related to the grace period, in which inventors can sell or publicly disclose their invention up to a year before filing a patent. That grace period appears to be preserved in the new legislation.
I was using the parent's language. And as you say, the situation we're talking about only occurs when there's a race to reduce to practice and file.
In proper patent reform, when one party can show that they invented the idea before another party, but was unable to patent it before the other party did... that is prima facie evidence that the idea does not meet the non-obviousness requirement
Meh. I'm lukewarm on this. There have been a lot of major important inventions that were invented simultaneously - the telephone, the radio, etc. Maybe there should instead be a rebuttable presumption that the invention is obvious. That would be fun, because the two parties would likely have to work together to rebut the presumption.
The patents should be automatically invalidated, and neither party should get to have a patent on the invention....
I disagree. I think the better solution is to grant both inventors a nonexclusive patent. The inventors could then choose to work together, keeping the patent exclusive as between them; or one could buy out the other; or they could both hold weak, nonexclusive patents, which of course they could only issue nonexclusive licenses for - I think is the best outcome.
Note that prior art is limited to earlier patents and release to the public. If I sell my program under contract only, i.e. I don't release it to the public, it doesn't count as prior art, and others can patent my invention.
Nope. Something is prior art if it is "on sale." The patent law doesn't allow you to sell your invention for more than a year before filing for a patent. Doesn't have to be on sale to the public - It's settled caselaw that selling the invented product under contract and not to the public generally is still a "sale." The new legislation doesn't appear to disturb this.
From the new legislation: " 102. Conditions for patentability; novelty (a) NOVELTY; PRIOR ART.—A person shall be entitled to a patent unless— (1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention"
What if a company's new technology is leaked and widely distributed to the public prior to the patent filing?
If the leak was more than a year prior to the patent filing, that company is screwed. If less than a year, then the company is probably okay, due to the grace period. If the company loses the patent because of the leak, they can sue the shit out of the leaker (for violation of trade secret laws), probably for the value of the patent.
Here's the provision in the new legislation concerning the grace period:
"A disclosure made 1 year or less before the effective filing date of a claimed invention shall not be prior art to the claimed invention under subsection (a)(1) if: (A) the disclosure was made by the inventor or joint inventor or by another who obtained the subject matter disclosed directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor; or (B) the subject matter disclosed had, before such disclosure, been publicly disclosed by the inventor or a joint inventor or another who obtained the subject matter disclosed directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor."
The main difference this brings is that you cannot publish something prior to patenting it, as your own publishing can act as prior art, invalidating your own patent.
Not so. IIRC from law school, inventors get a year-long grace period after they publish their invention before they have to patent it or lose it.
In fact, this provision appears to be in the new legislation. From HR.1249:
"A disclosure made 1 year or less before the effective filing date of a claimed invention shall not be prior art to the claimed invention under subsection (a)(1) if: (A) the disclosure was made by the inventor or joint inventor or by another who obtained the subject matter disclosed directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor; or (B) the subject matter disclosed had, before such disclosure, been publicly disclosed by the inventor or a joint inventor or another who obtained the subject matter disclosed directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor."
First to invent appeals to the notion that little guy inventors will get screwed over by big companies, because the big companies can afford to file patent applications quickly. This is sort of a short-sighted argument, though - because figuring out who invented first is a messy factual inquiry (can you prove you invented it in your garage? Are we supposed to just take your word that you had a working prototype years ago?), extensive, expensive litigation is necessary to pin down who invented first. Little guy inventor cannot win massive litigation against a big company - the little guy just can't afford the necessary lawyers and expert witnesses.
Its much cheaper to file an application than it is to win a patent lawsuit.
It appears that the bill in question is H.R.1249 (TFA doesn't actually specify which bill they're talking about - and there are several versions floating around congress). The text of the bill concerning prior art is:
‘‘ 102. Conditions for patentability; novelty (a) NOVELTY; PRIOR ART.—A person shall be entitled to a patent unless— (1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention; or (2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention."
Thus, prior art under the new law would be anything that was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Did you patent every conceivable aspect of your invention? Will some slimy scum bag come in behind you and patent some trivial aspect of your product and then sue you?
If your product is on the market before the slimy scum bag files for a patent, he'll be rejected at the patent office, because your product is prior art. Every aspect of the product is prior art, whether it was patented or not. Under a first to file system, you can't sue someone (successfully) for patent infringement if their product was for sale to the public before you filed. Under a first to invent system, the slimy scum bag might win, if he actually invented the "trivial aspect of your product" before you did, plus various other conditions. Under the first to file system, that messy problem of proving who invented first is removed.
Slashdot Mirror
What, you mean like when Jared Lee Loughner shot and killed Judge John Roll?
It's pretty tasteless to suggest that only "polite" people disapprove of the assassination of public servants.
Actually, by "innocent", the summary is referring to defendants who have not downloaded the porn - that is, people who are actually innocent of copyright infringement.
The problem is that if the porn companies screwed up and have a bunch of wrong IP addresses in addition to correct ones (that is, people who did download the porn as well as people who didn't), the people at the end of the wrong IP addresses will still get a letter threatening a lawsuit in which they will be publicly accused of downloading "bareback college studs" (or whatever) unless they pay up two thousand dollars. Regardless of whether they're innocent, most people would rather pay up (and keep the whole thing secret) than mount an expensive legal defense.
Most federal judges are not impressed with this "settlement extortion" legal strategy, and aren't letting porn companies (and similar plaintiffs) get away with this on the cheap. What I mean by that is, the porn companies* are getting people's names and addresses, which they need to send the threatening letters and settlement demands, by suing thousands of defendants at the same time. Not only is this very questionable so far as the rules of civil procedure, they also only pay one filing fee even though they're essentially suing thousands of people. The courts would really prefer that the porn companies pay the $350 filing fee for each defendant they sue, because these massive lawsuits generate huge amounts of paper work, and clog up the system to the detriment of other lawsuits that are perhaps actually about obtaining justice rather than extorting settlements.
*there's reason to believe that the porn companies don't really care that much, and these massive lawsuits are instigated by a handful of lawyers who think they've found an easy way to hack the legal system and make a bunch of money. These lawyers do these suits on a contingency basis - that is, the porn companies aren't actually paying the lawyers to file the law suits; instead, they split whatever profits they get from settlements.
Federal judges are protected by article III of the Constitution, and cannot be removed from office except by impeachment. Many judges never really retire, either, they just become "senior" judges with reduced case loads. They are nominated for their offices by the president and confirmed by the senate.
They aren't free of corruption (see Justice Thomas, or more specifically, his wife), but the federal judiciary is remarkably free from corporate pressure, and it really is the closest thing the USA has to a bastion of liberty and freedom.
but make sure the spaces close to the entrance never completely fill up [streetfilms.org].
The dude in your link suggests that you can keep one or two open spaces by setting the right price for parking - set the price high enough to deter some people from parking there.
So, you're suggesting charging more for spots near the entrance to buildings? And requiring people who need handicapped spots, because they're handicapped, to pay for it?
I do feel ashamed that the first I heard of this natural disaster / tragedy is from a news story about the price of hard drives. Thanks for drawing attention to the important part of this story.
If you are hungry and have $1 only and this stake is $5, it doesn't mean that you have a 'moral' right to that stake.
If steak is the only, or cheapest, food source, then you *do* have a moral right to the steak.* You just don't have the resources to afford it.
Face it - markets may be efficient in terms of short-term allocation of money value, but they are blind to morality. If you accept market outcomes as always being the "best" outcome, then you're ignoring moral values. It's up to you to decide if moral values are important to you.
*assuming that human life is morally superior to money. Everyone else who is hungry also has a moral right to the steak. The greatest moral right presumably goes to whoever is hungriest / most in need of nutrition to survive.
...So you're achieving synergistic use of multiplatform solutions?
That's an excellent point, and I'd mod up if I had points.
Facebook can sublicense your info to a third party ("you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook"), but that sub sublicense necessarily terminates when facebook's does - when/if you remove the info ("This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account..."), though there may be a loophole if you've "shared" the info with others ("...unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it"). What does "shared with others" mean? I dunno, but I imagine it means posting on a friends wall, or something of that sort.
"that one year exemption will only apply to win it's signed."
What does that mean?
"it will severally hamper in attempt I make to get investor in on my inventions"
What does this mean?
"that could, quite literally, take my idea and patent it and I have NO RECOURSE"
If they take your idea and try to patent it, you can sue them. When someone files a patent app, that person has to swear under oath that he/she invented the invention. If you can show that you invented it, and they stole your idea, then they're in deep shit. Their patent app is invalid, and you can file your own if you wish/if you have the money/investors.
So, you do have a recourse.
Plus, before you show a patentable idea to anyone, you need to get them to sign an NDA. This is standard practice.
Are you really going to appeal to authority *and* object to blind faith in the same post?
"I disagree with how this video game simulates reality" is not the same thing as "this video game is violent"
Likewise, that your choices in a video game may lead to some virtual deaths is not the same thing as violent.
Patent applications are rejected all the time. The problem is that the "inventor" (I.e., whatever company is backing the patent application) can revise the application, so as to avoid whatever got it rejected previously. Applications go through a lot of rejections - sometimes a dozen or more - before finally being approved. I've heard the statistic that 9 out of 10 applications are eventually approved... But it takes years and a lot of "rejections" to get there.
And, by the way, this means that patent examiners spend a lot of time reviewing applications. The process involves a lot of back and forth between the examiner and the inventor. I'm not going to vouch for their competency in the field, but it's unfair to say that examiners don't spend the time to understand the product, or don't know enough about it before approving the patent.
Prior art doesn't have to be on the market - it has to be available to the public in some way, whether via the market, or published somewhere, or patented already (not necessarily in the US), etc. Open source software, if it's available online, is published... Or at least available to the public. So, it would be prior art, if it is indeed prior to the supposed invention.
Read the statute like this:
Prior art is an invention that
-was patented
-described in a printed publication
-in public use
-on sale
or
-otherwise available to the public.
The courts have determined that offering an invention for sale - regardless of whether it's openly on sale to consumers or only sold in private contracts - constitutes prior art, because otherwise, an inventor could sell the invention privately for a long time, and only patent it (and get the full patent term) when the inventor fears that someone else is close to patenting the same thing.
In other words, construing "on sale" to mean only "public sales" would allow an inventor to benefit from patent law for longer than the patent term. You have a choice - you can protect your invention by patent law, or you can protect it by trade secret law. Not both.
Then how would this be different from what we already have?
Compare the new law, posted in GP, with the current law:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless— ...
(a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent, or
(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States, or
(d) the invention was first patented or caused to be patented, or was the subject of an inventor’s certificate, by the applicant or his legal representatives or assigns in a foreign country prior to the date of the application for patent in this country on an application for patent or inventor’s certificate filed more than twelve months before the filing of the application in the United States, or
(e) the invention was described in (1) an application for patent, published under section 122(b), by another filed in the United States before the invention by the applicant for patent or (2) a patent granted on an application for patent by another filed in the United States before the invention by the applicant for patent, except that an international application filed under the treaty defined in section 351(a) shall have the effects for the purposes of this subsection of an application filed in the United States only if the international application designated the United States and was published under Article 21(2) of such treaty in the English language;
Other than the first paragraph, about publishing before patenting, GP's post is insightful. You should stick with correcting/clarifying posts you disagree with, not slamming them.
That's where the "lawyereze" comes in. Is my "I invented a banana peeler" provisional patent the same thing as "1) a device for peeling elongated fruits utilizing a metallic thingamabobber 2) Claim 1 wherein the thingamabobber is made of plasic 3) Claim 1 wherein the thingamabobber is made of magma 4) ..."?
Provisional applications contain only the specification, not the claims. All you have to do is describe the invention, you don't have to pin down exactly what the patent would protect. A patent lawyer is still a good idea when writing up the spec, but such help is not nearly as crucial as writing claims.
first-to-file systems generally have "prior use" defenses.
That does not appear to be the case in this new legislation, which I think is a serious problem. However, the legislation does call for the USPTO director to issue a report on prior use defenses in other countries. Maybe the report will prompt congress to add a prior use defense.
As far as I know, first to invent only goes back one year. That it the most you can back-date an invention.
Nope, you can backdate an invention as far as you have records for, though you might run the risk of having "abandoned" the invention if you invented it 10 years ago, sat on it, and only bothered to patent it recently.. The year requirement you're thinking of is probably related to the grace period, in which inventors can sell or publicly disclose their invention up to a year before filing a patent. That grace period appears to be preserved in the new legislation.
It is almost invariably not a "scumbag".
I was using the parent's language. And as you say, the situation we're talking about only occurs when there's a race to reduce to practice and file.
In proper patent reform, when one party can show that they invented the idea before another party, but was unable to patent it before the other party did... that is prima facie evidence that the idea does not meet the non-obviousness requirement
Meh. I'm lukewarm on this. There have been a lot of major important inventions that were invented simultaneously - the telephone, the radio, etc. Maybe there should instead be a rebuttable presumption that the invention is obvious. That would be fun, because the two parties would likely have to work together to rebut the presumption.
The patents should be automatically invalidated, and neither party should get to have a patent on the invention....
I disagree. I think the better solution is to grant both inventors a nonexclusive patent. The inventors could then choose to work together, keeping the patent exclusive as between them; or one could buy out the other; or they could both hold weak, nonexclusive patents, which of course they could only issue nonexclusive licenses for - I think is the best outcome.
Note that prior art is limited to earlier patents and release to the public. If I sell my program under contract only, i.e. I don't release it to the public, it doesn't count as prior art, and others can patent my invention.
Nope. Something is prior art if it is "on sale." The patent law doesn't allow you to sell your invention for more than a year before filing for a patent.
Doesn't have to be on sale to the public - It's settled caselaw that selling the invented product under contract and not to the public generally is still a "sale." The new legislation doesn't appear to disturb this.
From the new legislation:
" 102. Conditions for patentability; novelty
(a) NOVELTY; PRIOR ART.—A person shall be entitled to a patent unless—
(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention"
What if a company's new technology is leaked and widely distributed to the public prior to the patent filing?
If the leak was more than a year prior to the patent filing, that company is screwed. If less than a year, then the company is probably okay, due to the grace period. If the company loses the patent because of the leak, they can sue the shit out of the leaker (for violation of trade secret laws), probably for the value of the patent.
Here's the provision in the new legislation concerning the grace period:
"A disclosure made 1 year or less before the effective filing date of a claimed invention shall not be prior art to the claimed invention under subsection (a)(1) if:
(A) the disclosure was made by the inventor or joint inventor or by another who obtained the subject matter disclosed directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor; or
(B) the subject matter disclosed had, before such disclosure, been publicly disclosed by the inventor or a joint inventor or another who obtained the subject matter disclosed directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor."
The main difference this brings is that you cannot publish something prior to patenting it, as your own publishing can act as prior art, invalidating your own patent.
Not so. IIRC from law school, inventors get a year-long grace period after they publish their invention before they have to patent it or lose it.
In fact, this provision appears to be in the new legislation. From HR.1249:
"A disclosure made 1 year or less before the effective filing date of a claimed invention shall not be prior art to the claimed invention under subsection (a)(1) if:
(A) the disclosure was made by the inventor or joint inventor or by another who obtained the subject matter disclosed directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor; or
(B) the subject matter disclosed had, before such disclosure, been publicly disclosed by the inventor or a joint inventor or another who obtained the subject matter disclosed directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor."
Mod parent up.
First to invent appeals to the notion that little guy inventors will get screwed over by big companies, because the big companies can afford to file patent applications quickly. This is sort of a short-sighted argument, though - because figuring out who invented first is a messy factual inquiry (can you prove you invented it in your garage? Are we supposed to just take your word that you had a working prototype years ago?), extensive, expensive litigation is necessary to pin down who invented first. Little guy inventor cannot win massive litigation against a big company - the little guy just can't afford the necessary lawyers and expert witnesses.
Its much cheaper to file an application than it is to win a patent lawsuit.
So this means the concept of prior art is moot?
No.
It appears that the bill in question is H.R.1249 (TFA doesn't actually specify which bill they're talking about - and there are several versions floating around congress). The text of the bill concerning prior art is:
‘‘ 102. Conditions for patentability; novelty
(a) NOVELTY; PRIOR ART.—A person shall be entitled to a patent unless—
(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention; or
(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention."
Thus, prior art under the new law would be anything that was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Did you patent every conceivable aspect of your invention? Will some slimy scum bag come in behind you and patent some trivial aspect of your product and then sue you?
If your product is on the market before the slimy scum bag files for a patent, he'll be rejected at the patent office, because your product is prior art. Every aspect of the product is prior art, whether it was patented or not. Under a first to file system, you can't sue someone (successfully) for patent infringement if their product was for sale to the public before you filed. Under a first to invent system, the slimy scum bag might win, if he actually invented the "trivial aspect of your product" before you did, plus various other conditions. Under the first to file system, that messy problem of proving who invented first is removed.