Implications of the America Invents Act for R&D managers: connecting the patent life cycle with the technology development process

Protecting intellectual property is crucial for R&D managers. The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), which overhauled the US patent system in order to reduce litigation and bring US patent practices into line with interna- tional systems, offers new opportunities and challenges in this arena. AIA focuses on improving efficiency, increasing trans- parency, and harmonizing with other national patent regimes. In pursuit of these aims, the law introduced several key changes: eliminating the requirement for “best mode” disclosure, expanding the definition of prior art, moving from first- to-invent to first-to-file as the key criteria for patent eligibility, and adding post-grant review, among others. Using two fa- miliar frameworks, the patent life cycle and the Stage-Gate model for new product development, the paper explores how AIA impacts R&D managers’ considerations around intellectual property. The law comes with added risks for R&D manag- ers, who now must evaluate the commercial potential of innovation much earlier (with a larger set of stakeholders), while maintaining more secrecy than was required under the old regime. The demands of AIA require that R&D managers be- come more important members of the enterprise’s strategic team.