Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2015
Abstract
When Congress overhauled U.S. patent law in 2011, the main debate
focused on the merits (and constitutionality) of converting from the incumbent
first-to-invent system, in effect since 1790, to a first-to-file system. With little
attention or analysis, the statutory overhaul also did away with what was
perceived as a rarely used relic of the pre-Internet era: the Statutory Invention
Registration system. Concluding that the Statutory Invention Registration system
was essentially useless under the outgoing law, Congress eliminated a system
with potentially significant uses under the new law, including uses that would
help redress the disadvantage imposed on U.S. inventors by the America Invents
Act ("AIA"). The system should be restored, with modifications that will make
it especially useful to universities, startup ventures and other underfunded
inventors.
This Article traces the brief history of the Statutory Invention
Registration system, from its introduction in 1984 through its repeal in 2011,
analyzing the possible reasons Congress might have thought the system obsolete.
It then demonstrates how each of those reasons, while rational under the
thenexisting law, would not apply under the revised statute. It then shows how a
modified Statutory Invention Registration System would be valuable to society in
general under the new statute, but particularly so to independent inventors,
nonprofit organizations, and universities. Finally, it describes the outline of a
proposed system that meets the needs of those groups and furthers the
Constitutional goal of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts.
Recommended Citation
Max S. Oppenheimer,
The Case For Reviving A Statutory Invention Registration System,
(2015).
Available at:
https://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/all_fac/886