Patent reform is underway in the United States.

The US Senate has approved the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, a bill to reform the patent system.

This is the fourth attempt to reform US patent law, following previous ones introduced in 2005, 2007 and 2009.

The main change contained in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act is the patent issuance principle. While the previous act used the first-to-invent principle—a patent was granted to the first person to invent a technology—the new act plans to shift to the first-to-file principle—to the first person to file an application to register an invention.

Large companies supported the reform of patent legislation, but representatives of small and medium-sized businesses are dissatisfied with this reform.

In addition, the document contains a mechanism for introducing fees for filing applications for patent registration.

Patent law reform in the United States has been discussed for a long time, especially in light of the serious confrontation between the leaders of the mobile communications market.