America Invents, One Decade Later

On the 10 year anniversary of the America Invents Act, IP Watchdog asked some prominent players in the IP world what they thought. The AIA most importantly changed the patent system from a first-inventor-to-invent to a first-inventor-to-file system It was seen as a way to harmonize the US with the rest of the world, but there were fears that it would be detrimental to U.S. innovation. Many respondents to IP Watchdog’s query feel that the Act has thwarted innovation, but others see it more positively. According to Meredith Addy, of AddyHart, P.C., it has been anchor weighing down America’s innovation community over the past decade. “Despite what its Orwellian title purports to encourage, the AIA is killing innovation, not promoting it,” he says. MaryAnne Armstrong, Birch Stewart, calls the AIA an overall positive that fills a fundamental gap in U.S. patent laws compared to other countries. “Almost all countries have some form of an opposition system, which permits the preemptive challenge to a patent’s validity without the need for a corresponding assertion of the patent, by the patent owner.”