President Barack Obama signed legislation Friday that will overhaul the U.S. patent system for the first time since 1952.<\/p>\n
“We have to do everything we can to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit wherever we find it,” Obama said at a signing ceremony at a high school in Arlington, Virginia. This measure “cuts away the red tape that slows down our inventors and entrepreneurs.”<\/p>\n
Obama used the occasion to promote his $447 billion jobs plan, calling patent reform a “part of our (larger) agenda for making us competitive over the long term.”<\/p>\n
Among other things, the measure, dubbed the America Invents Act, will transition the country to a “first-to-file” system, instead of the current “first-to-invent” approach. Issuing patents to the first person or company to file will help provide clarity in the patent-granting process, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office says. It will also prevent inventors from coming out of the woodwork to challenge pending patents.<\/p>\n