US patent law 100 - inventor definition

The provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) relating to "First-Inventor-to-File" are set forth in Section 3.  Section 3(a) amends definitions relating to inventorship in 35 U.S.C. § 100.  The "inventor" is defined in new § 100(f) as "the individual, or if a joint invention, the individuals collectively who invented or discovered the subject matter of the invention."  A "joint inventor" is defined as "any 1 of the individuals who invented or discovered the subject matter of the joint invention" (§ 100(g)).  This section also defines a "joint research agreement" along current lines (§ 100(h)).  Importantly for the "first-inventor-to-file" regime, Section 2(a) defines the "effective filing date" either as the actual filing date of the invention (§ 100(i)(1)(A)) or "the filing date of the earliest application for which the patent or application is entitled" under §§ 119, 365(a), 365(b), 120, 121 or 365(c) (§ 100(i)(1)(B)).  Finally, this section defines "the claimed invention" as "the subject matter defined by a claim in a patent or application" (§ 100(j)).