America Invents Act (AIA) Proposed Rule and Comment Request

A proposed rule and a request for comments regarding the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) have been published in the Federal Register. According to the summary of the proposed rule, Changes To Implement the First Inventor To File Provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, the act "amends the patent laws pertaining to the conditions of patentability to convert the United States patent system from a 'first to invent' system to a 'first inventor to file' system; treats United States patents and United States patent application publications as prior art as of their earliest effective United States, foreign, or international filing date; eliminates the requirement that a prior public use or sale be ‘‘in this country’’ to be a prior art activity; and treats commonly owned or joint research agreement patents and patent application publications as being by the same inventive entity for purposes of novelty, as well as nonobviousness." See more at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-07-26/pdf/2012-18121.pdf .

The request for comments pertains to examination guidelines to implement the first-to-file provisions of the AIA. See details at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-07-26/pdf/2012-17898.pdf.

National and State Effects of Eliminating the American Community Survey (ACS)

The Census Project, "an informal network of scores of census stakeholder organizations that are working to ensure inclusive, comprehensive and forward-thinking early planning for Census 2020,"
released a new report documenting state and national effects of eliminating the American Community Survey (ACS). (The House of Representatives voted on May 9 to eliminate funding for the ACS. See our May 10, 2012 blog post for information about and link to the House vote.) Entitled Eliminating America's Playbook, the report compiles case studies and comments from organizations detailing how they use the ACS. The case studies and comments are "organized nationally, and, in some states by topic area" and include contact information for the reporting organizations. A wide array of organizations provided information including those working with children, women, minorities, veterans, housing, urban planning, community development, and academics projects from Harvard and Pennsylvania State.

Annotated Bibliography of Native American History

Brandon Burnette of Southeastern Oklahoma State University has published a new GODORT (Government Documents Round Table/ American Library Association) Occasional Paper (Number 7, June 2012) entitled "Annotated Bibliography of Native American History from United States Federal Documents: Print and Online Resources." The extensive list of resources should be of help to anyone conducting scholarly or genealogical research.

Other occasional papers are available on the GODORT wiki at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/GODORT_Occasional_Papers