Apparently the US Senate passed a new bill regarding patent reform yesterday, leading to legislation that will overhaul the US Patent & Trademark Office.
Included is a change from first-to-invent to first-to-file, an end to fee diversion which will help the USPTO fund its current systems properly and assist with the backlog of 70000+ applications. It will also provide an expedited review for applications for patents describing inventions deemed key to national priorities, such as clean energy technology.
One has to ask though when will software patents be addressed? From my perspective, this bill doesn’t really help much but we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.