The following quote from Senator Kyl from Arizona, speaking before Congress, explains quite a bit about what Congress understood about the new Patent Act they were voting on. Trust me…you’ve got to read it.
Among many of our most innovative companies, 70 percent of their licensing revenues come from overseas. Obviously, they are already going to be complying with the first-to-file rules. This bill does not, therefore, so much switch the system with which Americans are complying today as it simply allows American companies to only have to comply with one system rather than two. As I said before, the first-to-file concept is clearer, faster, more transparent, and provides more certainty to inventors and manufacturers.
On the other hand, the first-to-invent concept would make it impossible, in many instances, to know who has priority and which of the competing patents is the valid one. To determine who has priority under first to invent, extensive discovery must be conducted and the Patent Office and courts must examine notebooks and other evidence to determine who conceived of the invention first and whether the inventor then diligently reduced it to practice.
Under first-to-file, on the other hand, an inventor can get priority by filing a provisional application. This is an important point. It is easy. It is not as if the first-to-file is hard to do. This provisional application, which only costs $110 for the small inventor, only requires you to write a description of what your invention is and how it works. That is all. That is the same thing that an inventor’s notebook would have to contain under the first-to-invent concept if you are ever going to prevail in court by proving your invention date.
Because a provisional application is a government document, the date is clear. There is no opportunity for fraudulently backdating the invention date. There is no need for expensive discovery: What did the inventor know and when did he know it? You are essentially not requiring anything in addition. You file a provisional application. You have an entire year to get all of your work together and file your completed application, but your date is as of the time you file the provisional application.
As I said, for a small entity, the fee is only $110. That grace period makes it clear that the patent will not be invalid because of disclosures made by the inventor or someone who got information from an inventor during 1 year before filing. That is important.
A lot of academics and folks go to trade shows and begin talking about their concepts and what they have done. If you disclose this, you have a year to file after you disclose the information. And under the bill’s second, enhanced grace period, no other disclosure, regardless of whether it was obtained from the inventor, can then invalidate the invention.
The bill has been very carefully written to protect the small inventor or the academic. That is what it is designed to do. This is not a case of big versus small, although people both big and small support the legislation. If anybody suggests the Feinstein amendment will protect the small inventor, it does not protect the small inventor. In fact, as I said, the legislation is very carefully crafted to give the small inventor a variety of ways to ensure that he or she is protected.
Source: http://www.uspto.gov/aia_implementation/crec-2011-03-03-pt1-pgs1174.pdf, hat tip to Tim Van Tuinen.
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