President Obama signed into law H.R. 6621 on January 14, 2013, enacting a number of technical corrections to the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act and title 35, United States Code. In addition to correcting a number of scrivener’s errors, the new law revises various windows for inter partes review of first-to-invent patents and reissues, filing of an inventor’s oath or declaration, patent term adjustment of U.S. national stage applications, and derivation proceedings.

“Dead Zones” Eliminated for First-to-Invent Patents and Reissue Patents -

H.R. 6621 amends 35 U.S.C. § 311(c) to remove the so-called “dead zones” in which no review of first-to-invent patents and reissue patents was available under the AIA. H.R. 6621 § 1(d). Now, petitioners need not wait to file inter partes review of those first-to-invent patents issuing within nine months of, or after, September 16, 2012, as H.R. 6621 makes Section 311(c) inapplicable to first-to-invent patents. Similarly, H.R. 6621 makes the nine-month tolling provision of Section 311(c) inapplicable to reissue patents. H.R. 6621 § 1(d (2).

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