Beem Blog

There has been much interest—and misunderstanding—concerning the patent reform bills wending their way through Congress. On June 23, the U.S. House of Representatives passed The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, H.R. 1249, by a 304-117 vote. The vote follows the U.S. Senate's March 95-5 vote for S. 23, but the bills must be reconciled before becoming law. Both bills would change the U.S. patent system from a first-to-invent (FTI) system into a first-inventor-to-file (FITF) system. Misapprehension centers around that change.

The Washington Post has come out against patent reform in a poorly vetted editorial published June 12, 2012. A glaring error in the Post editorial is the statement that there is an 18 month grace period currently. Under U.S. law, the grace period actually is one year. Moreover, there will be no change in the grace period under any of the leading proposals for patent reform. Contrary to the Post commentator's opinion...