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America Invents Act

In the USA, The Patent Reform Act is legislation that was proposed in 2007. As of June 2011, it seems to have been renamed the America Invents Act. It was rejected in the Senate in 2008 but discussions began again in 2009 and continued in 2010.

This proposal does not deliver the real reform we need - it would not end or even reduce the granting of software patents by the USPTO. We need to change what can be patented - what areas are "patentable subject matter", to have software removed. This reform might reduce the problem of patent trolls, but won't have any effect on the harm to standards or on MPEG video formats.

It is generally proposed to change the USA's granting system from first-to-invent to first-to-file, like the rest of the world.

Related pages on ESP Wiki

External links

Senate committee hearings