Currently viewing the tag: "AIA"

U.S. President Obama signs the AIA into law on 16 September, 2011

The final package of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (H.R.1249, pdf) will enter into force on 16 March 2013 (for a list of amendments and their effective dates, see here). By this date, the most significant amendments of the new Act will enter into force, namely the transformation from the traditional first-to-invent regime to the new first-inventor-to-file regime.

Besides reducing the USPTO’s backlog of approx. 680.000 patent applications and improving patent quality, the main objective of the America Invents Act is to harmonise the US patent system better with international patent law standards and by that facilitate second filings of US applicants in foreign jurisdictions.

This is indeed a brilliant idea, not only for US applicants but also for European applicants and practitioners, as it will align the US system closer with the European patent system. However, event for those legal instruments that are clearly adapted to the European point of view, important differences remain. Some of those tiny differences that may have a huge impacts on practice are outlined below: 

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On March 16, 2013, the final (third) package of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (H.R.1249, pdf) will enter into force. This will include the transition from the traditional US fist-to-invent system to the first-to-file system as used in the rest of the world. In a recent press release the USPTO announced publication of the

On this blog’s German sister blog ksnh::jur we recently published a series of three postings dedicated to the changes the America Invents Act causes to US patent law. As this piece of US legislation implements one of the most important reforms of internation IP law in recent years, its provisions, legal effects and possibel shortcommings have been extensively – and partly exellently – discussed by  so many US blogs that there surely is no need to add another synopsis on a Europe-focussed IP blog like this.

However, as a large portion of our regular readers live and practice in the German-speaking part of Europe, we thought that some of them might appreciated to read about this topic in their mother tongue. The three articles are structured parallel to the three packages of the AIA that enter(ed) into force on 16 Sep 2011 and 16 Sep 2013 and on 16 Mar 2013:

Die Änderungen im US-Patentrecht durch den ‘America Invents Act’

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