[bdcrazy]

It's first to file now. Imagine front running patents! Or granting every application and preventing the throwing out of bad ones. Bend the knee and pay your tithe or be buried in lawsuits.

[tzs]

First to file really doesn't change anything relevant here. It just makes it so that if two or more independent inventors invented the same thing and both are applying for a patent the patent goes to whoever filed first instead of trying to figure out who invented it first.

Trying to figure out who invented first could be hard because your priority date was not necessarily when you actually thought of the invention. It was the latest date where you started working diligently to reduce your invention to practice and continued so working until you succeeded.

So if you came up with the idea and started right away working diligently on it and keep doing so until you succeeded then your priority date would be when you came up with the idea.

But if you took breaks you might lose that priority date, and your new priority date would be when you resumed work.

So then we have to decide when a break will reset your priority date. Is it just the length? Does the reason for the break matter?

And what counts as working diligently? Does it need to be full time or is it OK if you are working on your invention every evening after your job?

It was quite messy.

[recursive]

That's one way it could go. Another is that no new patents are granted. No lawsuits. Full Shenzhen.