How the America Invents Act Will Change Patenting Forever
wired.com
wired.com
I don't understand the negative slant this article is trying to put on it. Other than the same kind of knee-jerk "Change is bad!" that you see every time Facebook changes its page layout, what's the problem with this?
If #1, they have prior art to keep a big company from patenting it, and the two compete in the market.
If #2, I'd argue they don't deserve the patent; it doesn't benefit the public to grant them that monopoly unless the public gets a product out of it. Let the big company patent and sell it.
Right?
For #2, the inventor may have patented in the hopes of licensing the idea to a corporation with more manufacturing muscle.
Only the inventor is allowed to file a patent. Under a first-to-file system, anything that has been made public can still be used as prior art to invalidate a patent.
Would the use of the invention by others invalidate the patent application? Would the patent be granted, but unenforceable due to the prior public release of the invention being construed as estoppel that creates a general license to the invention? Or would the inventor, armed with a new patent, be able to tell everyone already using the invention that they now have to pay a license fee to continue using it?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5211221
Long story short: this change is not a big deal.
Especially useful comment:
Explain it to me as a 5 year old:
This is not a true 'first to file'. You basically get 1 year grace period.
Example: John gives a speech on his invention. Mark files a patent a month later after hearing John's speech. John then files a patent application 6 months later. Mark's application cannot be used against John's application as prior art,even though, Mark filed a application first.
This was generally the practice before AIA. As most people would say it harmonizes US patent laws with around the world. In other words, mostly semantics...
An example of a prior use defence in a first to file jurisdiction -- here, the UK -- is:
"Where a patent is granted for an invention, a person who in the United Kingdom before the priority date of the invention—
(a) does in good faith an act which would constitute an infringement of the patent if it were in force, or
(b) makes in good faith effective and serious preparations to do such an act,
has the right to continue to do the act or, as the case may be, to do the act, notwithstanding the grant of the patent; but this right does not extend to granting a licence to another person to do the act."