Welcome to the new era in U.S. patent law. Beginning March 16, the United States went to a "first-inventor-to file" patent system, a major change from the "first-to-invent" system that has existed ever since the nation’s patent laws were enacted in 1790. Patent lawyers had been advising their clients, "Beware the Ides of March," but it’s too late for some of them now.
"It’s a big paradigm shift," says Erika Arner, chair of the patent prosecution practice at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner.
