Two take home lessons from Town Hall meeting on patent reform

Last Friday, I attended the Town Hall meeting on patent reform co-sponsored by AIPLA and the Federal Trade Commission. The agenda was jam-packed with reform issues, and sparked incredible discussion and debate. While reviewing my notes from the meeting, two themes continually rang in my head:

• the scope of the reform issues that are currently “on the table” is incredibly large — ranging from adoption of a first-to-file system to elimination of the best mode requirement; and
• the reform movement has legs. It is clear that some of the proposed changes will be implemented, someday. When and what remains to be answered.

I’ll add posts in the near future that break down the issues and summarize some of the discussion from the Chicago meeting. In the meantime, I urge all patent professionals to consider attending one or both of the meetings on March 18 (Boston) and June 9 (DC) — its not too late to join the debate.