Jerry Stuckle wrote in news:m3orvu$d93$1@dont-
email.me:

In the United States, it is called "First Inventor to File". You can
find more information at
http://www.uspto.gov/aia_implementat...t_inventor.jsp.


The main thing I need to know now is: can nothing but a full patent protect
my own work from being effectively satolen from the instant I put it in the
public domain, leaving me with absolutely no right to distribute or profit
from it in any way at all?

If that IS so, then the patent system is violently in need of serious reform,
but as far as I'm concerned it basically means one thing: I shall never
release my work. If the workd will not share it, it will die with me. End of
discussion.