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Patents provide crucial incentives for inventors and businesses to invest time and funds into cutting-edge and emerging technologies. However, a series of Supreme Court decisions issued during the 2010s muddled the state of patent eligibility for many such technologies, such as medical diagnostics and artificial intelligence. The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) would restore pre-2010

C4IP is recognizing Margaret Knight, one of the most prolific female inventors of the 19th century. She is best known for her invention of a machine for producing paper bags. Knight was born in York, Maine, in 1838, and worked in textile mills from a very early age following the death of her father. She created her first invention at

C4IP accomplished a lot during the month of March! Here’s a roundup of what our Coalition has been up to over the past month. March Highlights: Promoting Patent Eligibility Reform The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA), reintroduced by Senators Thom Tillis and Chris Coons in June, remains under consideration by the 118th Congress. This important bill would resolve the

Strong, consistent IP protections throughout U.S. history enabled the creation of the innovative and useful technologies that we use regularly today. From clothing to transportation, every aspect of our lives has benefited greatly from IP, as shown by these historical examples from the month of March: 1917: On March 20, Gideon Sundback received a patent for a “separable fastener” — known

This chaotic area of law harms American innovation and competitiveness Without Congressional consideration or endorsement, the Supreme Court has fundamentally altered the U.S. patent system by deciding that certain categories of innovation should not receive patents by widening the “judicial exceptions” to what is eligible to be patented under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Starting in

C4IP Co-Chairs and former USPTO Directors David Kappos and Andrei Iancu just published a new opinion piece in The Hill, which draws from C4IP’s newly released Congressional Innovation Scorecard to explain how the U.S. can fix the growing disparity between its R&D spending and China’s. The scorecard found that a supermajority of Congress — nearly

America’s strong intellectual property system played a pivotal role in the rapid global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Patents provided crucial incentives for the development of life-saving vaccines, therapies, and diagnostic tests, all of which were distributed globally. However, despite these successes, there are ongoing efforts by certain global leaders to pursue an international agreement at the World Health Organization (WHO) that would erode

Last week, C4IP board members and former federal judges Paul Michel and Kathleen O’Malley published an opinion piece in The Hill highlighting the dire need to pass the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act. The piece traces the origins of the current “crisis of patentability” back to a pair of Supreme Court cases in the early 2010s.

This month, C4IP is recognizing Mark Dean, a pioneer of personal computers. Dean was born in Jefferson City, Tennessee, in 1957, and studied electrical engineering at the University of Tennessee and Florida Atlantic University before becoming chief engineer of IBM’s personal computers division at the age of 25. He led the team behind IBM’s first personal computer and holds three of

Innovation requires IP. Without a strong patent system, innovation does not happen at scale. Virtually every invention of impact is patented, as exemplified by these historical examples from the month of February: 1916: On February 8, Charles Kettering received a patent for the first self-starting automobile engine, a technology that has since been universally incorporated

February was a busy month for C4IP! Here’s a roundup of what our Coalition accomplished over the past month. February Highlights: Protecting the Bayh-Dole Act February 6 concluded NIST’s public comment period for the newly proposed “march-in” framework, which would twist the Bayh-Dole Act into a mechanism for government price control. If implemented, such government

Former USPTO Director and C4IP Co-Chair David Kappos published an opinion piece this week in the Brussels Times advocating against the European Parliament’s proposal to micromanage standard-essential patent (SEP) licensing, which would represent a massive blow to European tech innovators if adopted. Kappos explains how the European Parliament’s proposal, which would task bureaucrats with managing