Race To The Patent Office

Race To The Patent Office MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous A new patent law goes into effect in March Patent rights will shift from the current “first-to-invent” system to a “first-to-file” method which is used in most other countries It means basically that if you want to own your invention you need to be the first to show up at the patent office Many experts fear the change will be harder on individual inventors than big companies which are more likely to have better access to patent lawyers They fear some smaller inventors might lose rights to their ideas However the hope is that the change will prompt companies and individuals to get their inventions into the patent office sooner rather than sitting on an idea until the “time is right” to patent Other inventors or companies won’t have to guess whether someone has already patented an idea And individual inventors will have to determine as soon as possible whether an idea has enough commercial potential to warrant the expense of a patent filing

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