Yesterday, the Senate passed the America Invents Act, S.23, a/k/a the Patent Reform Act of 2011. The version of the bill that passed the Senate, which is distinctly different than earlier versions of the bill from this and previous Congresses, contains provisions that affect various aspects of patent law, including: First inventor to file (Sec. 2), Inventor's oath and declaration (Sec. 3), defenses and evidentiary requirements (Sec. 4), Post-grant review (Sec. 5), Establishment of a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Sec. 6), Pre-issue third party submissions (Sec. 7), Venue (Sec. 8), PTO fee-setting authority (Sec. 9), Supplemental examination (Sec. 10), Residency of Federal Circuit Judges (Sec. 11), Creation of Micro-entities (Sec. 12), Changes in funding agreement percentages (Sec. 13), Tax strategies deemed to be in the prior art (Sec. 14), Best mode requirement (Sec. 15), and a Transitional program for Covered Business Method Patents (Sec. 18), which provides an administrative procedure for challenging business method patents. For a copy of the Act as passed yesterday, click here. The House of Representatives must consider the issue next, either by adopting, in whole or in part, S. 23 or proposing its own version of patent reform.
