C4IP Coalition Updates: January 2024

Happy New Year! C4IP’s 2024 has been off to a busy start. Here’s a roundup of what our Coalition has accomplished so far this year.

• On January 31, C4IP Co-Chair Andrei Iancu and former NSCAI Director of Research and Analysis Rama Elluru published an opinion essay in Reuters centered on the intersection of artificial intelligence and intellectual property.
  • “Plenty of thorny issues surround AI adoption. Policymakers should start by tackling patent laws and rules head-on. Leaders in both the tech and life science industries, who are often at odds over IP policy, are united in support of bringing clarity to these issues. Now is the time.”

• On January 29, C4IP Co-Chairs Andrei Iancu and David Kappos published an opinion essay in STAT underscoring why the Biden administration should not support a WTO petition to strip IP protections from Covid-19 treatments and diagnostics.
  • “If officials ultimately endorse this proposal, it could seriously jeopardize America’s economy and national security. Proponents claim that intellectual property waivers are necessary to expand access to shots, therapeutics, and diagnostics in the developing world. But there’s no evidence to support these claims.”

• On January 25, C4IP board members and retired federal judges Paul Michel and Kathleen O’Malley published an opinion essay in the Detroit News focused on how the Biden administration’s proposed changes to Bayh-Dole’s march-in rights are at odds with the letter of the statute and would damage our innovation economy.
  • “Misusing the Bayh-Dole Act to impose price controls would not only be a legal travesty but would have disastrous repercussions for America’s high-tech industries and overall economic competitiveness.”

• On January 24, C4IP Co-Chairs Andrei Iancu and David Kappos’s remarks from the January 23 Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property hearing — on the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2023 (PERA) — were featured in an IPWatchdog article.
  • Iancu: “All human invention is the manipulation of nature towards practical uses by humans on this planet. We can exclude nature itself but any human intervention and manipulation, that is what human innovation and engineering is and it should be eligible for a patent.”
  • Kappos: “[T]he IP system has never been about what’s now but what’s next. Ultimately, the innovation that’s not created because the patent system isn’t there to incent it is the innovation whose price is infinite.”

• On January 24, C4IP Co-Chairs Andrei Iancu and David Kappos and Board Members Judge Kathleen O’Malley and Judge Paul Michel published an opinion essay in Euractiv illuminating the effect that the European Commission’s ill-advised proposal for standard-essential patents (SEPs) has already had in emboldening China to unilaterally set its own licensing rates, wreaking havoc on established international agreements.
  • “The idea that government bodies, rather than industry participants, should control the licensing of essential patents has emboldened China. Mere weeks after the Commission put forth its proposal last year, Beijing unveiled its own proposal for unilateral rate-setting for essential patents…For European policymakers to tacitly condone and copy China’s approach would be enormously self-defeating.”

• On January 24, C4IP and the Bayh-Dole Coalition co-hosted a briefing on the Bayh-Dole Act and the Biden administration’s recently proposed framework on march-in rights. C4IP Co-Chairs David Kappos and Andrei Iancu and Bayh-Dole Coalition Executive Director Joe Allen spoke at the event, alongside Kate Hudson of the Association of American Universities and Charles Crain of the National Association of Manufacturers. You can access the full recording of the event and photos here.

• On January 23, C4IP sent a letter to Member of the European Parliament Adrián Vázquez Lázara advocating against the European Commission’s proposed regulatory changes for SEPs, which would diminish high-tech innovation and advantage China at the expense of Europe and the United States.
  • “If Europe enacts its proposed SEP approach, it would validate China’s governmental model of top-down, unilateral global IP regulation. This will place European and American industries at an overwhelming disadvantage in emerging fields vital to future economic leadership and jobs.”

• On January 23, C4IP sent a letter to President Biden, Commerce Secretary Raimondo, and United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai urging vocal opposition to the European Commission’s SEP proposal and calling attention to how the proposal has already emboldened China to overrule established SEP licensing practices.
  • “Efforts to impose government control over SEP licensing — whether in China or Europe — threaten continued technological innovation. U.S. leaders must stop this shift toward balkanized technology spheres.”

• On January 22, C4IP Chief Policy Officer Jamie Simpson was quoted in an Axios article on how uncertainty around the patentability of artificial intelligence innovations has made the passage of the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act even more urgent.
  • “In contrast [to the United States], AI is being patented in China and Europe. While there might be broader conversations about what AI should do for society, as a baseline, we should make sure we have the same protections that exist elsewhere in the world.”

• On January 22, C4IP Co-Chair David Kappos and board member Judge Kathleen O’Malley were featured guest speakers at an event hosted by the USC Gould School of Law Center for Transnational Law and Business. They discussed the implications of the European Union’s new policies for SEPs for U.S. economic competitiveness.

• On January 18, C4IP Executive Director Frank Cullen appeared on FOX 2 in Detroit to discuss the growth of STEM industries in Michigan and how patent reforms, such as the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act and PREVAIL Act, would help to increase local jobs in STEM and promote the commercialization of groundbreaking inventions.
  • “You have to have a way to commercialize your invention if you want to bring it to the public, and right now there’s confusion in the marketplace because of some court decisions and also some well-intentioned legislation that unfortunately has created problems when it comes to [patent] eligibility…and how you can defend your patent if someone wants to challenge it.”

• On January 17, C4IP Co-Chair David Kappos’s comments from the Bayh-Dole Coalition’s December webinar — on the Biden administration’s proposed march-in framework would severely disadvantage small businesses — were featured in an article in Tech Transfer Central.
  • “This [framework] is going to be, ‘Let’s help the biggest companies have an easy time getting access to intellectual property after it’s been de-risked by the little companies.’…The little companies aren’t going to get capital in the first place…if there’s no guarantee of an exclusive position.”

• On January 14, C4IP Co-Chairs and former USPTO Directors David Kappos and Andrei Iancu published an opinion essay in The Hill dissecting the effects that the Biden administration’s proposed framework on Bayh-Dole march-in rights would have on technological innovation across the board.
  • “The White House claims [the framework] would reduce drug prices. But its proposal extends far beyond drugs, and will stifle investment in climate change, sustainable agriculture, advanced computing, energy, medicines and all other technologies that benefit millions across the globe.”

• On January 11, C4IP published a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal urging opposition to the proposed expansion of the TRIPS waiver and showcasing the letter on that issue that C4IP sent to President Biden in December, which was signed by 47 former government officials, technology transfer administrators, and other innovation policy experts.

• On January 9, C4IP Chief Policy Officer and Counsel Jamie Simpson appeared on the SEP Couch Podcast to discuss the vital role of SEPs in U.S. IP policy, including the actions that U.S. regulators should take on the issue and the recent regulatory proposal by the European Commission that could destabilize the established SEP system.

• On January 9, C4IP board members and retired federal judges Paul Michel and Kathleen O’Malley published an opinion essay in Bloomberg Law focusing on how the Biden administration’s proposed framework for march-in rights would stifle the development of life-saving drugs at universities and federal laboratories.
  • “If President Joe Biden succeeds in changing the law to permit unlimited violations of private patent rights, countless promising medicines and other technologies will never reach the public.”

• On January 5, Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation, published an opinion essay in RealClearHealth exploring how the Biden administration’s proposed framework for march-in rights would exacerbate ongoing prescription drug shortages by cutting even further into pharmaceutical investment.
  • “Washington is alarmed, and rightly so, about shortages of generic drugs. Yet policymakers keep working to undermine the intellectual property protections and profit motive that drive drug development.”

• On January 4, retired federal judge and C4IP board member Paul Michel published an opinion essay in Law360 underscoring how the TRIPS waiver proposed at the WTO would advance China’s interests while decimating U.S. jobs and innovation in biotechnology.
  • “The Biden administration has already demonstrated a willingness to play hardball with China in other sectors to protect American industry…It makes no sense for the administration to turn around now and give China free access to proprietary American inventions.”