Thursday 12 November 2009

Attitude survey addresses impact of US shift to first-to-file

The highly-respected Patently-O weblog is running a survey of readers' attitudes towards the disruptiveness of a shift in the United States patent system from first-to-invent to first-to-file. According to the rubric:
"Although the legislative switch to a "first-to-file" system invokes the idea of eliminating priority contests between two competing inventors, some proponents of first-to-file systems are actually asking for a more expansive absolute novelty system.

Switching the US to an absolute novelty system would have three primary disruptive components: (1) ending interferences and other priority contests; (2) ending the ability for patentees to avoid putative prior art by proving an earlier invention date; and (3) ending the grace period for an inventor's own prior disclosures. These changes would impact the law as applied both in prosecution and litigation.

In this survey, I am hoping to get a sense of the relative importance of these changes. The survey should take only about five minutes to complete".
You can access the survey here.
The race to the Patent Office here

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