Leahy–Smith America Invents Act
2011 U.S. law reforming the patent process
The Leahy–Smith America Invents Act (AIA) is a United States federal statute that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on September 16, 2011. The law represents the most significant legislative change to the U.S. patent system since the Patent Act of 1952 and closely resembles previously proposed legislation in the Senate in its previous session (Patent Reform Act of 2009).
Named for its lead sponsors, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D–VT) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R–TX), the Act switches the U.S. patent system from a "first to invent" to a "first inventor to file" system, eliminates interference proceedings, and develops post-grant opposition. Its central provisions went into effect on September 16, 2012 and on March 16, 2013.
Provisions
First to file and grace period
The law switched the U.S. rights to a patent from the previous "first-to-invent" system to a "first inventor-to-file" system for patent applications filed on or after March 16, 2013. The law also expanded the definition of prior art used in determining patentability. Actions and prior art that bar patentability under the Act include public use, sales, publications, and other disclosures available to the public anywhere in the world as of the filing date, other than publications by the inventor within one year of filing (inventor's "publication-conditioned grace period"), whether or not a third party also files a patent application. The law also notably expanded prior art to include foreign offers for sale and public uses.
“Leahy–Smith America Invents Act” enters the record as 2011 U.S. law reforming the patent process. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Leahy, Smith and America can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Leahy–Smith America Invents Act” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Leahy, Smith and America provides the most credible route into that argument.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6509276. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2011, 1952, 2009 and 2012.
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This entry incorporates text from “Leahy–Smith America Invents Act” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.