The U.S. is on the verge of the largest shift the patent system has seen in decades as President Barack Obama prepares to sign a bill that will transform the process from a first-to-invent system to a first-to-file system.
The "America Invents Act," six years in the making, passed the Senate last week in a sweeping 89 to 9 vote accepting the bill, having won House approval in a similarly large landslide in March.
The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office hasn’t been content to sit in the backseat while litigation drove reform.
With the appointment of a new director plucked from technology giant IBM Inc., USPTO started getting hands-on with reform measures, developing a patent fast-track, pushing for more leeway with its fee excesses and working with other countries to allow one nation to defer to a patent decision made in another.
Click here to learn more about the in-house initiatives at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office in MassDevice’s podcast interview with patent attorney David Dykeman.
Or pick from other segments of the interview:
- Main page: Patent attorney David Dykeman breaks down the America Invents Act
- Background on the America Invents Act
- Winners and losers under patent reform
- Pitfalls and windfalls under patent reform
- “File early, file often”
- The post-grant challenge period
- Patent trolls and infringement lawsuits under patent reform
- The Supreme Court’s hand in shaping patent law
- In-house initiatives at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office
- Meet David Dykeman
