Chapter §7A.02 Sense of Congress and Legislative History for Post-AIA 35 U.S.C. §102

• Jurisdiction: United States

§7A.02 Sense of Congress and Legislative History for Post-AIA 35 U.S.C. §102

Relevant to interpretation of the amended 35 U.S.C. §102 are two "sense of Congress" provisions included in §3 of the AIA. These provide:

(o) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of the Congress that converting the United States patent system from "first to invent" to a system of "first inventor to file" will promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to inventors the exclusive rights to their discoveries and provide inventors with greater certainty regarding the scope of protection provided by the grant of exclusive rights to their discoveries.

(p) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of the Congress that converting the United States patent system from "first to invent" to a system of "first inventor to file" will improve the United States patent system and promote harmonization of the United States patent system with the patent systems commonly used in nearly all other countries throughout the world with whom the United States conducts trade and thereby promote greater international uniformity and certainty in the procedures used for securing the exclusive rights of inventors to their discoveries. ¹⁶

Although Congress's stated intent of "provid[ing] inventors with greater certainty regarding the scope of protection"¹⁷ provided by patents is laudable, it is not clear that the AIA will actually achieve this goal. The post-AIA...