C4IP was busy during the month of July! Here’s a roundup of all that we accomplished over the past month.
July Highlights: Promoting Thoughtful AI Policy
Artificial intelligence technology continues to make headlines – often heralded as one of the most transformative innovations of our time. However, care must be taken with our intellectual property if America’s inventors are to make the most of this technology. These laws, for instance, should be interpreted to ensure that inventions created with the assistance of AI are eligible for IP protection, no different than if the inventors had used any other tool. If specific requirements are established only for AI, innovators will be discouraged from utilizing this cutting-edge tool.
During the month of July, C4IP was active in advocating for fair and thoughtful AI policies in order to maximize this emerging technology’s benefits for our innovation ecosystem:
- C4IP Co-Chairs Andrei Iancu and David Kappos published an opinion essay in the Wall Street Journal exposing how the USPTO’s recent guidance on patenting AI-assisted inventions could inadvertently stifle innovation.
- Their op-ed was credited in an IPWatchdog article as a potential influence on the USPTO’s updated Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance for artificial intelligence.
“This [ambiguity of the guidance] devalues the entire corpus of AI-assisted patents, discouraging innovation and inviting infringement suits from well-resourced litigants.”
- C4IP submitted a public comment responding to the USPTO’s April 30, 2024, Request for Comments regarding how the emergence of AI technology might impact the Office’s determination of whether a patent application is patentable, with particular attention to issues relating to prior art and the person of ordinary skill in the art.
- C4IP’s public comment to the USPTO responding to its February 13, 2024, guidance for AI-assisted inventions was featured in a Squire, Patton, and Boggs article on the subject.
- The article was subsequently picked up by the National Law Review (NLR) and LexBlog.
- You can find additional resources on C4IP’s AI-related advocacy below and here:
Additional Coalition Updates
- On July 30, C4IP released a statement celebrating the introduction of the Realizing Engineering, Science, and Technology Opportunities by Restoring Exclusive (RESTORE) Patent Rights Act of 2024 in both the Senate and House, and praising the original sponsors, Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Representatives Nathaniel Moran (R-TX), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), and Hank Johnson (D-GA).
- On July 29, C4IP Chief Policy Officer and Counsel Jamie Simpson published an opinion essay in IAM addressing the threat of systematic theft of American intellectual property by foreign actors.
- On July 22, C4IP Executive Director Frank Cullen sent a letter to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet ahead of the July 23 hearing on “IP Litigation and the U.S. International Trade Commission.” C4IP urged the Subcommittee to consider the importance of the ITC’s ability to issue exclusion orders to protect U.S. innovation and how the ITC could be strengthened and modernized.
- On July 22, C4IP Executive Director Frank Cullen published an opinion essay in The Hill explaining how the ITC is our best hope to check the mounting global problem of theft of American intellectual property – the cornerstone of our high-tech economy.
- On July 16, C4IP Executive Director Frank Cullen published an opinion essay in World Intellectual Property Review underlining how legislation like PREVAIL, PERA, and SHOP SAFE would help defend U.S. intellectual property from foreign theft.
“In a world where technological supremacy increasingly dictates economic and military power, the systematic theft of IP amounts to a slow-motion global security crisis.”
- On July 13, C4IP Co-Chairs Andrei Iancu and David Kappos published a letter to the editor in STAT correcting misleading claims about the FDA’s “Orange Book” list of drug patents and generic competition that Senator Dick Durbin and FTC Chair Lina Khan made in a July 2 op-ed.
“[T]he Orange Book doesn’t delay generic competition — just the opposite. Drug companies are required to list every relevant patent in the Orange Book to make it easier for generic companies to know which medicines are patent-protected, and which ones are fair game.”
- On July 10, C4IP’s comments to the USPTO opposing the latter’s proposed rule change for terminal disclaimers were featured in articles in IPWatchdog and Law360.
- On July 9, C4IP Executive Director Frank Cullen submitted a public comment to the USPTO expressing strong opposition to the USPTO’s May 10 notice of proposed rulemaking on terminal disclaimers.