Patent Law Treaties Implementation Act of 2012 becomes Law

Patent

By Dennis Crouch

President Barack Obama has now signed-into-law the Patent Law Treaties Implementation Act of 2012, Pub. Law 112-211 (December 19, 2012). The new law contains two titles that provide domestic law required to implement a treaty.

  • TITLE I–HAGUE AGREEMENT CONCERNING INTERNATIONAL REGISTRATION OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGNS
  • TITLE II–PATENT LAW TREATY (PLT) IMPLEMENTATION

In the grand scheme of patent law, neither treaty is especially substantive. However, the Hague Agreement will likely have a much more substantial impact on the practice of protecting design rights on a global scale. In particular, the Hague Agreement creates a direct connection between US design patent application filing and European (and other) design right registration application and allowing a combined international application. The Hague Agreement implementation has a (likely) one-year effective date and will apply to applications filed after the effective date.

A draft mark-up and commentary can be downloaded here: /media/docs/2012/12/PLT.pdf

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2 thoughts on “Patent Law Treaties Implementation Act of 2012 becomes Law”

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    One question though, the Act amends the term to 15 years from date of grant, but also says that the effective registration date will be the filing date… does this mean its now 15 years from the filing date?

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