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Comment by benatkin | Hacker News Reader

This bill sounds like it does some good things. What nasty surprises came with it?

If you ignore the patent system and release your product without patents, your competition can arrive after you, patent your idea and then sue you.

I don't think that's quite right. As I understand the law (and IANAL), you could still get their patent invalidated for lack of novelty — you just couldn't claim the patent yourself in that case.

This Act changes the U.S. from a First to Invent system to a First to File.

First to file doesn't mean anything if there's prior art.

Prior art has very little to do with denying patents in the U.S.

Unfortunately true, but it does make it really hard to sue you.

Under a first to file system, you still have to be an inventor. If you're trying to patent something that you copied from someone else, you're not an inventor.

And even if you didn't derive your work from theirs, you still have a problem with prior art.

Prior art still invalidates patents in first-to-file systems.

First to file only means that, if you filed for a patent on some thing after someone else who also filed to patent it, you definitely don't get the patent (in a first-to-invent system, whichever of you can show the oldest documentation of invention gets the patent).

You could still apply for a patent yourself, if you are the inventor and it's been less than a year since the prior art became public knowledge.

That is just nowhere near being true.

You run that risk with the previous system. That has not changed. The first-to-file rule change only applies when the USPTO needs to resolve a conflict between two similar patents that are applied for around the same time.

The patent system has never protected inventors that do not attempt to patent their invention.

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