Here’s the most important (imho) part of the current “legislation”:
[The Patent Reform Act would require the publication, online, of all patent applications 18 months after filing — even if no decision has been made on granting a patent. That means that inventors big and small would see their precious creations exposed to the world, in all their scientific detail, with no certainty of ever gaining patent protection. And copycats around the world would have more than a year to duplicate the invention and even claim it as their own.”]
So...in other words - here it is world - take it.
Precisely. The U.S. has done nothing to protect its citizen’s intellectual property rights. So, why go to all the effort? I paid just under $1M to learn that lesson, and still haven’t recovered financially. The “American Dream”, from an inventor’s perspective, is just a tagline. Nothing more.
My most recent application just received a notice of allowance, after eight years.
This is meant to stop submarine patents, where a patent is filed in secret, usually to include things created by others during the time, then ta-da, someone who actually invented something is getting sued for patent infringement. Lemelson was a master at these.
Sorry, “usually amended to include.” People like Lemelson managed to keep their patents secret for years, all the time adding technologies that companies developed and marketed in the meantime. When he thought the market was ripe he’d finally allow his patents to get granted and then he’d sue.
Luckily patent law was changed a while ago so that the clock started ticking upon application. Lemelson’s ability to extend his patents for decades trough numerous continuations can’t happen anymore, thus the time frame for submarine patents is shorter.