If I understand correctly, the us patent system is "first to file" rather than "first to invent". There's a 1yr grace period from when an inventor publicly disc

If I understand correctly, the us patent system is "first to file" rather than "first to invent". There's a 1yr grace period from when an inventor publicly discloses an invention (say, in an academic journal) to when they must file a patent application. See this link for more details: https://techcrunch.com/2013/02/16/first-to-file-a-primer/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/02/16/first-to-file-a-primer/