

How the America Invents Act Will Change Patenting Forever - sk2code
http://www.wired.com/design/2013/03/america-invents-act/

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oneandoneis2
So.. it's a change from "The patent is yours.. unless somebody comes along
with a convincing story about how they thought of it before you and just
didn't tell anyone" to "The patent is yours"

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?

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banachtarski
The problem is that there are cases where the original inventor really is the
person without the resources or time to file the patent first. It goes both
ways.

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nathan_long
That's true. However, if the little inventor doesn't file the patent, they
either 1) sell the product anyway or 2) don't sell the product.

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?

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banachtarski
In the case of #1, how does the inventor keep selling once corporation X
successfully files?

For #2, the inventor may have patented in the hopes of licensing the idea to a
corporation with more manufacturing muscle.

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tptacek
Previous thread, which includes comments from a patent lawyer.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5211221>

Long story short: this change is not a big deal.

Especially useful comment:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5212111>

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nh
It seems that media just read the title of the bill and ran with it.

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...

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saosebastiao
So what happens when someone patents your company's established trade secrets
and then wants to charge your company to use its own internally developed
technology?

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andylei
prior art is still a defense, just like it was before.

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SEMW
"Prior art" is only stuff that was at the time available to the public, so
wouldn't apply to internal company secrets. The relevant defence here is prior
_use_ , which is different: unlike prior art, it doesn't invalidate the
patent, it's just a defence to infringement.

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."

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EGreg
Does this mean that some entrepreneur can invent something, start building in
stealth mode, and one of his employees can patent it, quit and sue him in a
year? :P

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ChrisNorstrom
Does anyone know how or weather prior art will be affected?

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andylei
it won't be

