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On March 16, a major change occurs in U.S. patent law. The United States will move from
a first-to-invent patent system to one that issues patents to the first inventor to file.
You've probably heard a lot about this new law and are wondering how it affects you as
an inventor.This video and others will give you a broad overview of what the changes mean.
We will cover the two essential sections of patent law that make up the change to first-inventor-to-file.
The first section explains what is prior art, while the second section covers the exceptions.So,
let's start by covering the part of the law that would make a claimed invention unpatentable
because of prior art.Okay, here's the actual wording of the new law, which is officially
known as Title 35 of the United States Code, Section 102, subsection A-1. Whew! Let's
just call it the first part of the novelty section. It says A person shall be entitled
to a patent unless—the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication
or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing
date of the claimed invention.But what does it really mean? We need to first look at the
term effective filing date. An effective filing date is the date that an application with
a claimed invention is first filed at the United States Patent and Trademark Office
or in a foreign country. Seems simple, right? But some patents can actually be filed with
the patent office on one date and the claimed invention will have a different effective
filing date. Okay, so let's look at the full law again while keeping in mind the effective
filing date. You see this part about getting a patent unless the claimed invention was
patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use? What this means is that
if an invention was patented, published as an application or appears in a magazine, journal
article, newspaper anywhere in the world — or if the invention is already for sale or otherwise
made known to the public anywhere in the world before the effective filing date, collectively
known as prior art, then it cannot be patented. So, in order to get a patent, an invention
needs to be something new and unknown to the world, or novel.
At first glance, the new law seems pretty restrictive, right? But there are key exceptions
to the novelty section, which we will cover in the next video, that remove some of those
barriers for the inventor to patent his or her invention. To learn more about claimed
invention, effective filing date, prior art, or for more information about this change
in patent law, click on the link provided. Select the next video to find out more about
the exceptions.