Patent Reform

Emerging Strategies' article on Patent Reform (linked here) has been the most popular among ES newsletter subscribers by a wide margin.  This highlights the concern that people have about the impact that the revised laws will have on them.  Public discussions of the new law, for example at local inventor organization meetings, reveal confusion about changes that have and will occur, and profound misunderstanding of how to respond or practices to adopt. 

Because the most significant of these changes, at least for smaller entities anyway, do not come into effect until March 16, 2013, plenty of time remains to develop a practical working understanding of the new laws and cost-effective practices to avoid the disastrous consequences of doing business as usual.

This blog is intended to be a forum for sharing R&D practices (but not proprietary information!) and business practices for securing rights to same, and addressing potential issues with these practices and adjustments that may be wise.

To start things in the right direction, let us discuss "first to file."  Many are concerned with the impact of the USPTO recognizing the first to file a patent application on an invention rather than the time-honored US tradition of recognizing the first to invent the invention.  The new legislation includes provisions that may mitigate potential problems that this convention may generate that depend on the facts and circumstances of each case.