Well, we knew the day would arrive. Someone has challenged the legality of America Invents Act of 2011, the act that reformed U.S. patent law giving a patent to the "first to file" rather than the "first to invent" the invention being filed for.
As reported by Iulia Filip for the Courthouse News Service, "Mark Stadnyk and his company MadStad Engineering sued the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, its director, David Kappos, and the United States of America, in Federal Court. Stadnyk says the America Invents Act (AIA), which took effect last year, is special interest legislation that favors big corporations at the expense of small businesses and individual inventors. Stadnyk claims the first-to-file system violates the Intellectual Property Clause of the Constitution, which states that patents can be awarded only to original inventors."
You can read the full report online: Inventor Challenges New U.S. Patent Law By IULIA FILIP
I know that many of my readers have been concerned about the new patent law for the same reasons that Mark Stadnyk has. Does it put the small inventor at a disadvantage? Will it increase the exploitation of independent inventors?
This is a point where a real thinker can show what one person can do to put this where it belongs NEVERWHERE!!!!!!!!!!! anyone feeling inventive?
It’s a shame independent inventors have to worry about someone claiming their ideas. I know i have a few in mind but im not giving any away lol.
I wonder is it better to trademark ideas first?
I think that Mark Stadnyk is right. His challenge is brilliant.Unfortunately, he will probably lose in court. Being right and following the Constitution doesn’t seem to mean much anymore.—I’ve lost all my respect for federal judges.—My invention, the Hank TEG is ready to go,but I’ve put everything “on hold”…I’m just going to wait until after the November election to see who wins..If it’s Romney, then there might be a chance to try to do something with my idea and create some good manufacturing jobs. If Obama wins, and it looks like he might, then my invention is “dead” .—Good luck Mark, get rid of that “America Invents” abomination. As long as we have it, America as we know it, will never survive…
Good luck Mark…As long as America has that “America Invents Act ” abomination it will never survive.
To arron hank : “My invention, the Hank TEG is ready to go,but I’ve put everything “on hold””
If it is ready to go, just submit the patent. Then you have nothing to worry about. Your’s will be the first to file, and you are safe. Your being willing to wait, just says the invention is just smoke and mirrors not real.
Well this adds another layer of muck to an already huge problem.
With the AIA no one bothered to say if ideas conceived before the implementation of the AIA would be covered by the old laws (since you can’t have ex post facto laws) or the new.
Thus those of us sitting on inventions waiting to get the fuinds to file might now be at risk of losing something we invented 3 yrs ago to someone who files today under first to file.
The good news about AIA?
IF you don’t have money to file apatent you can disclose and for 1 yr have the right to seek funds to file before losing your right to file while your disclosure proves you are inventor of record and no one else can file unlike the old law.
The real problem?
Patent applications throughout the granting of the patent should be FREE.
There are thousand of life changing inventions stored in file cabinets dated with proof of invention date because individual inventors do not have the approx $6000 to fully fund a patent on each invention. (no the initial filing fee of a few hundred is NOT all you need and if you can’t pay as you go you lose your right to patent so no one starts the process without all the money ready.)
America needs a patent fee holiday year where all patent fees are dropped and everyone can file every patent they have sitting around in draws.
how much wheat would be planted if America charged the farmers the moment they PLANTED the wheat? No wheat would be planted! So they tax farmers on the SALE of the final wheat product to make sure the wheat gets planted!
Patents should be funded only from sales tax on the sales of the items invented.
Part 2 continued
THe idea Reagan had to make the patent office “pay for itself with fees” was about the dumbest idea known to man. The patent office pays for itself by having a means for inventors to grow the general economy through the safe protected development of their inventions of new products and systems.
Otherwise I might as well just play video games.
Screw the lifesaving disease detection method i invented. I won’t get paid for it anyway and some hospital will just charge me thousands for a treatment I invented.
I surveyed members of inventors clubs. On average each member had 10 inventions they were sitting on until they had enough money to file a patent.
Think of all the advancements we are missing because of stupid patent filing fees.
AND the government should immediately hire 10,000 new patent examiners to get patent backlogs down below 1 WEEK. There is no reason that a patent once filed electronically shouldn’t have an examiner looking at it and granting or denying within ONE WEEK>
The average patent only gets 18 hours of inspection by an examiner anyway!
That could happen in one week if they just dropped the idea that the “patent office should pay for itself” and hired the number of examiners needed!