The U.S. Senate voted, 89-9, on Sept. 8 to pass a patent reform bill that’s been touted as a job-creation bill a little more than an hour before President Obama was scheduled to give a speech outlining a plan to boost jobs.
The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, which is considered the most sweeping change to the U.S. patent system in decades, would change the nation’s U.S. patent system from a first-to-invent system into a first-to-file system. Support for the first-to-file provision is mixed in the patent bar.
