America Invents Act–Good or Bad?

I just found this article on Forbes.com that gives both sides of the argument regarding whether the America Invents Act (AIA), which will go into further effect in the Spring of 2013, is good or bad. I like how the article is not just an anti-AIA screed from the perspective of individual inventors and small businesses. My view has long been that there will be very little negative impact on individual inventors and small businesses now that we have become generally a first to file county (whereas we used to be a first to invent country). The reason is, there is still the 1 year grace period, which means no matter what, if you publicly disclose or offer for sale your invention, you only have 1 year from that date to file a US patent application. Thus, there is still a “race” to the patent office. What is clearly on the plus side for individual inventors and small businesses is that patent fees will go down when the “micro-entity” fees take effect, presumably this spring.