December 2011
(Thanks to Dave Zedonis for summarizing this event.) Members met to discuss how they are adapting to the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (9/16/2011), which imposes the biggest change to U.S. patent law in almost 60 years. One provision of the Act takes away the long-standing American right of the first inventor of an invention to claim patent protection for the invention. Now, in keeping with long-standing European law, an inventor (1 st or 1001 st ) who first applies for a patent has the right to claim the patent. One strategy for adapting to this change is to file a series of provisional applications as you gradually develop your utility invention. Doing so gives you a particular file date for each inventive increment of an invention. Then, within 1 year of filing your first provisional application, file a nonprovisional application that incorporates the previously filed provisional applications. Within that 1 year, you may sell, test, or test market the inventio