Law Commons^™

Harmonization Through Condemnation: Is New London The Key To World Patent Harmony?, Max Oppenheimer

All Faculty Scholarship

Since 1790, when two U.S. patent applicants have claimed the same invention, the patent has been awarded to the first inventor. Today, the United States stands alone in the industrialized world, and many argue that the United States should, in the interest of world patent harmony, change its system so as to award a contested patent to the first applicant. Of the arguments advanced to justify the change, the only ones that withstand scrutiny are that "all the other countries are doing it" and the hope that some concessions in other aspects of intellectual property or trade might be obtained …