專利由於採屬地主義，發明人(申請人)須分別向各個國家請求專利保護，惟國際貿易漸形興盛，因此多國專利之取得即有必要。雖然有認為維持法制的多樣性可以互相比較促進法學進步，但是基於時間及金錢成本之考量，目前國際間對專利制度同異的態度仍以調和統一為方向。
在加拿大及菲律賓在2000年以前已改採先申請主義，此後只剩下美國維持其獨特的專利取得法制。美國舊法所採並非「純粹的先發明主義」。其允許以「先為公開實施」取得優先權，可分為「擬制的公開實施(亦即專利申請)」與「實際的公開實施」，亦即發明後須揭露，揭露方式可為擬制的付諸實施（亦即申請專利）或實際的公開實施，可見其鼓勵先為揭露，故以「先揭露的先發明主義」稱之。
先申請主義的優惠期間規定以及美國舊法的失權條款規定使得兩者之專利取得制度距離縮小，美國舊法毋寧是先申請主義與純粹先發明主義之折衷，惟仍有不同之處：其一，美國舊法的優惠期間是12個月，其他先申請主義國家多為6個月；其二，美國得主張優惠期間的事由較廣，且不區分是由發明人或是第三人所為的揭露，而其他先申請主義國家得主張優惠期間的範圍較挾，並且通常是由發明人所為之揭露，才能主張優惠期間；其三，理論基礎不同，美國舊法認為此乃對發明人專利申請權的限制，其他先申請主義則認為此屬新穎性喪失之問題。

Abstract
The Review of the New US First-Inventor-to-File Patent System

Author: Chia-Ying Tsai
Advising Professor: Chu-hsin Hsu
Department of Law, National Cheng Kung University

SUMMARY
Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011(AIA) changes the U.S. patent application system from a first to invent to first inventor to file (FITF) patent application system. This is a huge revision of the America patent statute in nearly 60 years. Before AIA, they had their own patent application system that differed from other countries. This paper focuses on the content of AIA, comparing the patent application system of AIA with patent application system of the other countries. To
Find out if AIA truely adopted the first to file patent system, or remained the same first to invent patent system. The research methods used in this paper include the legal-interpretation method, the case study method, and the comparative-study method.
This paper first examines the priority and novelty provision of first to file patent system (mostly are the provisions of Taiwan, European and Japan), and then compared them with the AIA to identify major differences and to determine which patent application system the American patent application system really is, and give some advices to the foreign applicant.

INTRODUCTION
There are two major patent application systems in the world. One is first to invent patent system, and the other one is first to file patent system. In a first to file system, the priority of patent right will be grant to the inventor who has the early filing date, regardless of the actual date of invention. In contrast, first to invent patent system will grant the patent right to the inventor who has early invention date. Before 2011, there were few countries that adopted the first to invent system: Canada, United States and Philippines. Since Canada changed their patent statute and adopted the first to file system in 1989, United States has become the only first-to-invent country and criticized by its trading partners. on September 16, 2011, President Obama signed the America Invents Act of 2011.The law switched U.S. right to the patent from the previous "first-to-invent" system to a "first-inventor-to-file" system. Congress replaced old §102 entirely, remaining only a few phrases, such as: disclosure, publicly use, etc. The defunct §102 has subsections (a)-(g) that defeat patent right on various bases, some of which are loss of right provisions. Other subsections are prior art-oriebted. The effective date of the provisions of AIA section 3, the first-inventor-to-file provisions, are 18 months after enactment. Under the first-inventor-to-file system, when two people claim the same invention, the USPTO wouldn’t institute an interference proceeding between them to review evidence of conception, reduction to practice and diligence anymore.
To know whether the AIA adopted the true first-to-file system or not, and to know its differences between the old novelty provisions, we should compared them with the true first-to-invent system and true first-to-file system.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The methodologies employed in this paper include the literature analysis method, the case study method and the comparative research method. The research materials include the old patent statute of Canada, old and new patent statute of America, the patent statute of European, Japan, and Taiwan. This paper firstly research the content of first to invent system as well as first to file system, and then compare these two patent system with the provisions of the United States, using this way to identify the essentials of AIA patent application.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION
The U.S. Patent Act prior to the AIA (Pre-AIA) wasn’t the true first-to-invent system, because it’s loss of right provisions: the old §102 (b), §102(c), §102(d). The old Canada patent law followed the true type of first-to-invent system, Christiana v. Rice (1931) interpreting the Canada Patent Act of 1923 to hold that the right to Canada patent will be grant to the first inventor, it hold the date of discovery of the invention is meant the date at which the inventor can prove he has first formulated, a description which affords the means of making that which is invented. Under such system, the subject mater’s condition on the date of filing has nothing to do with its patentability.
The Pre-AIA’s first-to-invent system is not as the same as the old Canada Patent Act’s novelty provisions, and we called it “first-to-disclose system to distinguish it from the true first-to-invent system. Under the Pre-AIA, an inventor who diligently worked on reducing his or her invention to practice by building a prototype and/or filing a patent application is entitled to the date of conception as the "priority date," so long as that inventor did not abandon, suppress or conceal the invention. Under these circumstances, the first inventor to conceive of the invention is entitled to a patent. But it has an exception to the true first-to-invent: statutory bars which require inventor filing the patent in a specific time (graced period) if inventors engaged in one of the activities listed in §102(b), (c), and (d).
AIA defines prior art in §102(a)(1), and it is as same as the first-to-file system. But AIA §102(b)(1)(B) give priority and grant a patent to inventor who independently invented the same invention and publicly disclose first, as long as the first-to-disclose inventor files a patent within one year from the disclosure.
In other words, an inventor can eliminate a §102(a)(1) prior art reference and §102(a)(2) prior art reference by showing an early date of disclosure during the one year graced period from his/or her effective filing date. If we interpret §102(b)(1)(B) in this way, AIA is a revised type of first-to-invent in fact. Not like other first-to-file system, second filing applicant may get the priority by publicly disclosing invention first.
Though AIA eliminated interference proceeding, because under the new patent law, reduce to practice, conception, diligent is no long important to priority of patent, USPTO still conduct derivation proceeding. If an first- to-file inventor derived the invention from a second-to-file inventor, the Board may conduct the proceeding to determine the issue. In addition, if a second-to-file inventor has publicly disclosed the inventor during the graced period, and his/or her date of disclosure is earlier than first-to-file inventor’s filing date, then the Board must need a administrative proceeding to deal the problem regarding who will be grant the patent. It seems this administrative proceeding is similar to the interference proceeding, and it’s not like the other first-to-file patent system that need no specific proceeding to determined the priority of granting a patent.

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