A Holiday Message from C4IP
As December draws to a close, we wish you and yours a very happy holiday season and a wonderful New Year! We look forward to a productive 2026, and we thank you for your continued interest in — and support for — the Council for Innovation Promotion.
December Highlights: Counterfeits and the Hidden Risks of Holiday Shopping
For many American families, shopping is a central part of the holiday season. But as holiday spending ramps up, so does the threat posed by counterfeit goods — knockoffs that falsely claim to be genuine products. Counterfeit products violate the intellectual property rights of legitimate inventors and businesses, and they are both a persistent drain on the innovation economy and a serious danger to consumers.
These fake products often bypass safety standards and quality testing, exposing families to dangers like electronics that catch fire and cosmetic products that contain toxic chemicals. Yet to unwary consumers, it is often difficult to distinguish a counterfeit product from a genuine one because counterfeiters often use other companies’ trademarks, such as logos and names, without authorization. As a result, counterfeit products harm real, innovative companies too — both by siphoning away their legitimate sales and harming their reputations when products fail. In turn, that stifles innovation, leaving legitimate innovators with less revenue with which to continue developing safe and useful products.
Unfortunately, counterfeits are a growing problem. According to recent estimates, these goods account for nearly $500 billion in global trade. In fiscal year 2025, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported seizing nearly 79 million counterfeit items valued at an estimated $7.3 billion.
Throughout December, C4IP worked to raise awareness of these harms and the importance of strong IP enforcement to combat counterfeiting:
- C4IP Executive Director Frank Cullen was interviewed by KSL-TV in Salt Lake City on counterfeit holiday gifts, highlighting how fake products harm consumers and innovators and offering advice on how to avoid purchasing counterfeits.
- He offered further advice on avoiding counterfeit goods in a KSL-TV article on what recourse consumers have if they order an item online that never arrives or does not arrive as expected.
- Cullen was also interviewed by FOX13 News in Salt Lake City, where he underscored the fact that even reputable online marketplaces can allow for the sale of fake products, and that these platforms — like consumers — have an interest in cracking down on counterfeiting.
You can find additional resources on the dangers of counterfeit products here and below:
- Blog: ‘Tis the Season — of Counterfeits?
- Op-Ed: ‘The stakes can’t be overstated’: IP theft in the US
- Letter: C4IP Letter to House Judiciary Committee on SHOP SAFE Act
- Press Release: Council for Innovation Promotion Celebrates the Introduction of the SHOP SAFE Act in the House of Representatives
Additional Coalition Updates
- On December 22, C4IP Chief Operating Officer John Cabeca published an opinion essay in RealClearHealth cautioning that recently introduced bills in Congress appear to take cues from countries that have allowed misguided policies to impede their ability to foster robust IP-driven innovation.
- On December 12, C4IP Board Member Gary Locke — former U.S. Ambassador to China and Secretary of Commerce — published an opinion essay in Fortune underscoring the need for patent subject matter eligibility reform, PTAB reform, and stronger injunctive relief for the United States to stay ahead of China’s rapidly growing biotech sector.
“If the United States wants to compete, it must restore trust in the intellectual property rights that enable inventors to turn bold ideas into revolutionary products.”
- On December 9, C4IP Executive Director Frank Cullen sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property ahead of its hearing on protecting copyrights held by musical artists, urging lawmakers to advance the American Music Fairness Act of 2025 to ensure that these creators are fairly compensated when their recordings are broadcast on radio.
- C4IP’s letter and views were mentioned in IPWatchdog’s article on the subcommittee hearing.
- On December 4, C4IP Executive Director Frank Cullen sent a letter to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative urging the U.S. policymakers currently negotiating trade with the European Union to secure strong IP commitments and steer European leaders away from harmful anti-IP policies like the EU General Pharmaceutical Legislation and (now-withdrawn) proposed regulation on standards-essential patents.
- On December 4, C4IP Co-Chair and former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu discussed the importance of strong IP rights to innovation in a radio interview on SiriusXM’s The David Webb Show.
- On December 4, C4IP published a blog post debunking a recent STAT article by Tahir Amin, the CEO of the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge (I-MAK), which falsely claimed that patent system abuses are leading to higher drug costs.
- On December 2, C4IP Executive Director Frank Cullen submitted a public comment to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office responding to proposed revisions to the rules of practice before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board — commending the proposed rules’ aim of reducing duplicative and repetitive patent challenges and urging the Administration to support permanent PTAB reform with endorsement of the PREVAIL Act.
- C4IP’s comments were quoted extensively in IPWatchdog’s article on the proposed rule changes, which summarized C4IP’s input as well as comments from other pro-innovation groups and members of Congress.
- C4IP’s comments were also cited in Law360’s coverage of the proposed rule changes and public reactions.
- On December 1, C4IP Executive Director Frank Cullen issued a statement applauding the USPTO’s revised inventorship guidance for AI-assisted inventions, emphasizing that continued AI innovation relies on policymakers treating AI as a tool used by inventors rather than a basis for creating additional procedural hurdles to obtain a patent.
Government Rundown
USPTO Event: The Journey of a Toy: From Idea to Store Shelf:
On December 18, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office hosted an event with the UIA Toy Hub that highlighted how intellectual property protections like trademarks and patents support the creation and development of toys, from conception through commercialization. The event included an optional tour of the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum and multiple panel discussions featuring representatives from leading toy companies. (USPTO, 12/18)
Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Intellectual Property Hearing: Balancing the Interests of Local Radio, Songwriters, and Performers in the Digital Age:
On December 9, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property held a hearing to discuss a legislative proposal — the American Music Fairness Act of 2025 — that would require radio broadcasters to compensate recording artists and copyright holders when broadcasting their songs. Gene Simmons, frontman of the band Kiss, and nonprofit music executive Michael Huppe testified in support of the bill, which C4IP also supports. (Senate Judiciary Committee, 12/9)
USPTO Event: 19th Annual USPTO-GIPC IP Attaché Roundtable:
On December 9, 2025, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office convened its annual roundtable with the Global Intellectual Property Center to discuss international IP enforcement challenges and strategies. Led by the USPTO’s attachés stationed around the world, the discussion underscored the importance of strong global patent and trademark protections to combat counterfeiting, support U.S. innovators abroad, and ensure fair competition. (USPTO, 12/9)
Office of the United States Trade Representative Hearing: Public Hearing Relating to the Operation of the USMCA:
On December 3-5, the Office of the United States Trade Representative held a public hearing on the operation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in advance of the scheduled 2026 Joint Review of the USMCA, the first since the agreement entered into force in 2020. The review process will give negotiators an opportunity to review the USMCA’s key provisions, with significant implications for intellectual property enforcement, innovation incentives, and U.S. competitiveness writ large. (Office of the United States Trade Representative, 12/3-12/5)
Fact Check
Former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan recently appeared on The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart, where their discussion revived familiar tropes that life science companies misuse patents to block competition and keep drug prices high. These arguments have circulated for years and have become common myths known by names such as “evergreening” and “patent thicketing.” The arguments are false: data consistently refutes the allegation that manipulation of the patent system is able to prolong the market exclusivity of new medicines. Refuting these false narratives is particularly important at a time when Congress is considering legislation to combat alleged patent abuses to weaken patent rights.
Lawmakers have introduced legislation such as the Eliminating Thickets to Increase Competition (ETHIC) Act and the Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act to prevent companies from compiling so-called patent thickets. As C4IP has written, these bills would not actually promote innovation, but would limit inventors’ ability to protect their inventions and deter future investment in innovation, including new medicines. It is crucial to debunk myths about patents in order to ensure that lawmakers do not inadvertently pass laws that undermine the IP rights that patients depend on.
Below, we refute three of the myths that surfaced in Khan’s and Stewart’s conversation:
| Claim: Drug innovators patent “minor changes” to their inventions to extend products’ patent life. |
| In reality: Patent law does not permit companies to extend the life of an existing patent through cosmetic tweaks. To receive a new patent, an invention must be useful, novel, and nonobvious, meaning it represents a real technical advance over what came before. Additionally, a new patent does not reset or extend the expiration date of an earlier patent covering the original drug, contrary to the myth of “evergreening.” When companies patent new versions of their medicines, the existing patents still expire on the same timeline and become available for competitors to copy. Lastly, it is also false that drug companies can extend the market exclusivity of their products simply by filing large numbers of patents, or “patent thickets,” on various aspects of their products. An investigation by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in response to an inquiry from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) found that the number of patents on a given drug did not have any relationship to when generic competitors entered the market. It also found that the effective period of market exclusivity for all drugs studied was far below the statutory patent term of 20 years. |
| Claim: Excessive patenting blocks competition and keeps drug prices artificially high. |
| In reality: The structure of the U.S. pharmaceutical market shows the opposite. The market for generic medicines is thriving: Nine out of every 10 prescriptions filled in the United States are for generic drugs. American generic drugs are also typically cheaper than generics in other countries. Robust generic drug competition in the United States drives prices down and saves Americans billions of dollars each year. America’s generic drug ecosystem is a robust complement to our branded drug ecosystem, which does involve higher average prices but uses that additional revenue to fund the research and development that leads to new drugs and, eventually, new generics. Thanks to strong patent rights incentivizing innovation and allowing companies to earn a return on their R&D investments, the United States accounts for about 60% of new chemical entities in medicines, nearly double the contributions of the largest European countries combined. If policymakers weaken our patent system to reduce innovators’ return on new branded medicines, both new drug innovation and later generic drug development will falter. |
| Claim: Companies patent tangential improvements to the drug — such as new inhaler devices — to prevent competitors from copying the medicine itself. |
| In reality: As mentioned previously, patenting improvements or updates to products does not extend the life of the existing patents on the product. In this case, patenting a new and improved inhaler device would not delay competitors seeking to imitate the previous inhaler device and drug formulation, as the patents on those components would still expire on schedule. Patenting new devices and delivery mechanisms would be an ineffective way to prevent competitors from copying drug formulations, if that were companies’ intent. However, it is important to note that these innovations are not actually tangential, but in many cases offer substantial benefits for patients. For conditions like asthma, how a drug is delivered can directly affect whether patients receive the correct dose and adhere to treatment. Clinical studies show that inhaler design and ease of use play a significant role in promoting patient adherence to treatment and producing better health outcomes. Overall, patients often opt for medicines with improved delivery systems because those improvements offer meaningful benefits — and companies continue to invest in developing these types of innovations because they know it fills a genuine demand from patients. Limiting companies’ ability to patent additional inventions like these would hurt patients first and foremost. |
Celebrating American Innovation
Inventor Spotlight
This month, C4IP is recognizing George de Mestral (1907-1990), whose invention of Velcro fasteners has become an integral part of products from clothing to spaceships.
- De Mestral was a Swiss engineer who conceived the idea for the “hook-and-loop” fastener after noticing burrs clinging to his clothes and his dog’s fur, then studying the burrs’ hooks under a microscope.
- After nearly a decade of experimentation, de Mestral succeeded in using nylon to reproduce the burrs’ hook-and-loop mechanism, an innovation he patented in 1955.
- De Mestral founded a company called Velcro (for “velour crochet” in French, or velvet hooks in English) to manufacture his invention.
- Today, the company is estimated to be worth over $300 million and serves a global market worth over $3.6 billion.
- De Mestral’s invention took time to catch on: Its first major adopter was NASA, which used the product to secure equipment, tools, and astronaut gear in zero gravity.
- Velcro-style fasteners were later adapted for use in home goods, health care, construction, and many forms of clothing.
- De Mestral’s story offers a textbook example of how the promise of patent protection drives inventors to persevere and incentivizes them to keep developing their ideas even when they are not at first commercially successful.
[PHOTO: Swissinfo]
What’s Happening in Congress
Democratic and Republican lawmakers continue to weigh legislation to prioritize strengthening IP protections, including the reintroduction of several significant bills from the previous Congress:
- The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA), which would revitalize innovation and investment in crucial high-tech sectors by reversing arbitrary, judicially created exceptions to patent eligibility.
- The Promoting and Respecting Economically Vital American Innovation Leadership (PREVAIL) Act, which would level the legal playing field for inventors and give them a fair chance to defend their patents from unauthorized infringement by larger competitors.
- The Realizing Engineering, Science, and Technology Opportunities by Restoring Exclusive (RESTORE) Patent Rights Act, which was reintroduced in both the House and Senate. This bipartisan, bicameral legislation would reestablish injunctive relief as the primary legal remedy for patent infringement, reaffirming innovators’ constitutional rights to the exclusive ownership of their inventions.
- The Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act, which would protect all individuals from having their voice and visual likeness copied by generative AI without consent.
We will continue to track movement on these bills and provide updates on legislative developments in upcoming editions. In the interim, you can find resources on these key issues here.