FIRST-TO-INVENT RULE: ANALYSING THE DICHOTOMY IN ORIENTATION AND PRACTICE

Abstract

Patents grant an exclusive right to inventors that is similar to, but not quite, a true monopoly because a patent provides for exclusion for a limited time of a thing that did not exist prior to its creation by the inventor – that is it would not exist but for the act of inventing. In light of the great commercial value of such inventions being a practice, the most fundamental question becomes regarding priority rights: who truly is entitled to the priority rights of an invention. The two methods employed are first-to-file rule and first-to-invent rule. The First to invent doctrine implies that the first conceiver of the invention is entitled to patent protection, the other doctrine of first-to-file grants patent to the inventor regardless of the date of invention and is said to be much more certain.