The outmoded patent system in the United States, which has forced innovators and inventors to wait years and outlast challenges and lawsuits before getting recognition for their products, would be overhauled under a measure passed Tuesday by the U.S. Senate.
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The legislation, which was approved 95-5, transforms a patent system now operating under a law passed in 1952, at a time when the high-tech revolution was still in the future and international competition was negligible. The bill now moves to the House of Representatives for action.
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President Barack Obama said he looked forward to signing into law the most significant patent reform in over half a century to help grow the economy and create jobs.
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The most substantial change brought about by the bill would be to switch the United States to a first-inventor-to-file system for patent applications used by all other industrialized countries rather than the current first-to-invent system. Supporters say the first-to-file system would put American innovators on the same page as their overseas competitors, making the process simpler, more certain and less expensive.
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Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, a leading sponsor, said it can cost $500,000 in legal fees if there is a dispute over who was the first to invent a product. Under the new system, he said, an inventor can pay $100 for a provisional application to protect his invention.
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To meet the concerns of independent inventors and small businesses that first-to-file would give the edge to corporations with the resources to file quickly and often, the bill gives a one-year grace period to protect academics and other inventors who disclose their inventions before filing for a patent.
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Patent office director David Kappos said first-to-file was a win for all American innovators, of all sizes and all industries.
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Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has tried for years to…