The US is poised to become the last country in the world to give up the ‘first-to-invent’ patent framework. On 23 June, the country’s House of Representatives joined the Senate in passing the America Invents Act, which outlines new rules for patent application and, crucially, adopts the first-to-file system used by patent regulators in all other nations.

The new framework will award a patent to the first inventor to turn in his or her application, ditching the lengthy and expensive disputes over who invented a product first. At the same time, a central concern within the biomedical community is that the race to file first will produce slapdash patent applications, leaving room for mistakes that can cause headaches for all involved.

Here we outline five ways that the patent overhaul will change the landscape for intellectual property rules in the drug industry.

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Image: by Brian Turner on Flickr under Creative Commons