June Highlights: Members of Congress Respond to C4IP’s Innovation Scorecard
C4IP recently released its 2025 Congressional Innovation Scorecard, an annual report grading members of Congress’s performance on innovation and intellectual property issues. The Scorecard found that overall, Congress’s attentiveness to IP has increased, with a notable uptick in IP-related bills and resolutions being introduced in the 118th Congress — yet the majority of members continue to show only a limited interest in advancing pro-IP policy.
Even though the number of pro-IP senators grew this year — now topping 20 — the majority of Congress continues to underperform. More than half of all lawmakers received a grade of ‘C’ or lower, signaling limited engagement on policies that drive American innovation.
As the Scorecard concludes, the 119th Congress must promote IP rights with greater urgency in order to ensure America’s future economic prosperity and national security.
Throughout June, C4IP worked to raise widespread awareness of these findings. Our efforts drew coverage from the media and responses from many members of Congress:
- C4IP released the 2025 Congressional Innovation Scorecard in late May alongside a statement that summarized its findings, encouraging lawmakers to prioritize pro-IP policies.
Read It Now: “Congressional Innovation Scorecard, Second Edition“
- Several high-scoring members of Congress took to the press and social media to reiterate their strong support for IP rights and thank C4IP for recognizing their efforts.
- Chris Coons (D-Del.) highlighted his “A+” grade from the Scorecard in a post on X, stating that he “will always fight for bipartisan solutions to protect intellectual property rights so that America’s innovators can keep pushing us into the future.”
- Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas) highlighted his “A+” grade from the Scorecard in a post on X, noting that “Innovation is key to American strength. We must protect the ideas, inventions, and creators that drive our economy forward.” He also featured his Scorecard grade in his latest newsletter, which was picked up by The Gilmer Mirror.
- Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) issued a press release spotlighting his “A” grade from the Scorecard and reaffirming his commitment “to focus on intellectual property policies that foster the innovation and creativity we need to drive human progress.”
- News outlets also dedicated coverage to the Scorecard’s findings:
Additional Coalition Updates
- On June 30, C4IP Executive Director Frank Cullen issued a statement urging Congress to remove the moratorium on state-level regulations of artificial intelligence technologies from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that the Senate was in the process of voting on at the time of the release.
- On June 27, C4IP Executive Director Frank Cullen submitted a comment letter responding to the United States Trade Representative’s recent request for comments on foreign freeloading on U.S. innovation, emphasizing that supporting patents — and urging other nations to do the same — is key to maintaining America’s status as an innovation leader.
- On June 26, C4IP Executive Director Frank Cullen submitted a comment letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services expressing concern about CMS’s proposal to group reformulated drugs together with their predecessors during price negotiations. The policy would disincentivize follow-on innovation by devaluing innovation and patents associated with those improvements, eroding trust in that industry sector and setting a precedent that could erode trust more broadly across all sectors.
- On June 25, C4IP Co-Chair Andrei Iancu spoke on a panel at the National Academy of Inventors’ 14th Annual Conference, which discussed how government, private industry, and universities work together to drive innovation.
- On June 24, C4IP Co-Chair Andrei Iancu and C4IP Chief Policy Officer and Counsel Jamie Simpson, in addition to Congressman Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas), spoke at a conference at the USC Gould School of Law about the importance of strong IP rights to national security and technological leadership.
- On June 13, C4IP Board Member Judge Kathleen O’Malley (ret.) published an opinion essay in Law360 arguing that the passage of three pro-patent reforms — the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act, the PREVAIL Act, and the RESTORE Patent Rights Act — is necessary to ensure American leadership in next-generation technologies.
“Strengthening patent protections, cracking down on foreign IP abuses, and setting clear rules for AI are not just technical fixes — they are critical reforms that will keep America competitive in the global economy.”
- On June 6, Center Square noted C4IP’s strong support for the PREVAIL Act in an article on the bill, which aims to protect inventors from harassment and abuse in Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) proceedings.
- On June 4, C4IP Executive Director Frank Cullen published an opinion essay in the World Intellectual Property Review discussing the central role patents, trademarks, and copyrights play in the music industry, and proposing several policy reforms to help AI enhance creativity and productivity in music without eroding the IP rights that serve as the industry’s foundation.
“To keep creative industries like music flourishing, policymakers need to strike a thoughtful balance. They must enact targeted rules curtailing uses of AI that exploit creators and infringe their IP rights without consent.”
Government Rundown
- USPTO Event: USPTO Hour: Congressional Inquiries About Patents Topics: On June 18, the USPTO held a webinar as part of its “USPTO Hour” series that responded to congressional inquiries about the patenting process. Most notably, the webinar outlined the results of the Deferred Subject Matter Eligibility Response (DSMER) Pilot Program, initiated in 2021 in response to a letter from Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). (USPTO, 6/18)
- USPTO Event: USPTO Hour: Artificial Intelligence: On June 17, the USPTO held a special edition of “USPTO Hour” hosted by Chief Information Officer Jamie Holcombe. The event discussed how the USPTO is adopting automated technology to streamline the patent examination process and is soliciting suggestions for future AI tools to incorporate. (USPTO, 6/17)
- USPTO Event: Roundtable on OECD Online Marketplace Guidelines: On June 5, the USPTO held a roundtable with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to discuss the OECD’s draft voluntary guidelines for curbing sales of counterfeit goods online. The roundtable followed a USPTO request for public comments on the guidelines, which aim to provide “insights and best practices” to marketplace sellers and IP owners on how to enforce IP against counterfeit products. (USPTO, 6/5)
- USPTO Event: USPTO Hour: Studying Applications With Large Patent Families: On June 4, the USPTO held an edition of “USPTO Hour” highlighting the findings of the Office of Patent Quality Assurance’s recent investigation into applications with large patent families. The investigation determined that large patent family applications are common across sectors — not just in pharmaceuticals. (USPTO, 6/4)
Fact Check
Earlier this year, a coalition of technology industry lobbyists sent a letter to President Trump urging his administration to weaken protections for standard-essential patents (SEPs) — patents that protect innovations incorporated into common, standardized technologies like 5G and Wi-Fi. Their letter reflected longstanding false narratives about SEPs and claimed that weakening SEP rights would benefit U.S. innovation.
In reality, the opposite is true. Economic incentives as well as governing law ensure that SEPs are licensed on fair and reasonable terms, enabling the spread of these technologies while preserving incentives for innovation. Further, as global standard-setters, U.S. companies — not foreign ones — benefit most from strong and reliable SEP enforcement. And because innovation in standards drives advancements in consumer technology, strong SEPs benefit the general public as well.
C4IP recently published a rebuttal to the lobbyists’ letter, setting the record straight on the importance of SEPs. Its major clarifications are detailed below:
| Claim: SEP owners abuse their patent rights by holding technologies hostage and charging excessive fees. |
| In reality: SEP owners have a strong incentive to license their patents widely, not “hold them hostage.” The more that standardized technologies are incorporated into additional products, the more that SEP innovators can earn in licensing revenue — which means it’s in their interest to offer accessible, market-driven rates. Additionally, the internationally accepted “FRAND” framework asserts that SEP licensing rates must be fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory. As a result, SEP licensing fees are usually very modest. Automakers, for example, pay around $30 per vehicle to permanently incorporate 5G capabilities. In turn, these reasonable royalties fund future research and development of improved standards. The real problem is not patent “hold-up,” but “hold-out“: when large corporations use patented standards while delaying or refusing to take a reasonable license. This deprives SEP innovators of rightfully earned revenue, undermining the incentive to continue developing new and improved technology standards. |
| Claim: Strong enforcement of SEPs benefits foreign companies at the expense of American firms. |
| In reality: American companies collect the lion’s share of global IP licensing revenue, which means they stand to benefit far more from strong IP enforcement than their foreign competitors. In 2023, U.S. companies earned nearly three times as much in fees from foreign licensees as they paid out. Further, looking specifically at SEPs, one recent study of seven major SEP pools found that U.S.-based licensors collected nearly 60% of total royalties. If policymakers want to support American companies, they should focus on strengthening rather than weakening methods of patent enforcement. Injunctions, which are court orders stopping infringers from using others’ patented technology, are an especially crucial remedy that has become much harder for patent holders to obtain since the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision eBay v. MercExchange. The decline of injunctions in the United States incentivizes large companies to hold out on licensing deals and forces SEP owners to seek injunctive relief abroad. Limiting access to injunctions in foreign courts, as the tech lobbyists suggest, would therefore only benefit patent infringers. To promote innovation, U.S. leaders must instead make it easier to obtain injunctions and enforce SEP rights here. |
| Claim: Weakening SEP rights by imposing limits on royalties and preventing the U.S. International Trade Commission from banning importation of infringing products would boost American competitiveness. |
| In reality: Weakening SEP enforcement would be a gift to foreign competitors — not a win for the U.S. economy. As stated previously, U.S. companies are currently world leaders in the development of many standards, and thrive under the existing FRAND system that sets SEP licensing rates based on fair negotiations that reflects market value. In contrast, rivals aiming to overtake the United States, like China, favor government regulation of SEP rates to ensure their own companies can implement SEPs without fairly compensating patent holders. Forgoing FRAND principles in favor of heavy-handed regulation of SEP rates would play right into China’s hands. Similarly, the ITC’s power to ban the importation of patent-infringing foreign products plays a vital role in bringing foreign companies who implement standards to the SEP negotiating table. Without the threat of such bans, foreign companies would be empowered to steal U.S.-developed standards with impunity while availing themselves of U.S. markets, harming U.S. innovators and America’s global competitiveness. Simply put, America needs stronger SEP rights — not weaker ones — to keep our domestic industry and innovation ecosystem strong. |
Celebrating American Innovation
Inventor Spotlight
This month, C4IP is honoring Lonnie Johnson (born 1949), a prolific inventor whose work spans energy systems, aerospace engineering, and one of the most successful toys of all time.
- A nuclear engineer and former member of the Air Force, Johnson has conducted research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Strategic Air Command.
- He has contributed to numerous historic breakthroughs, including the Galileo mission to Jupiter and the development of the B2 stealth bomber.
- But Johnson is perhaps best known for an invention he discovered at home while working to develop an improved heat pump: a water gun that he ultimately patented and licensed to become the famous “Super Soaker” line of toys.
- As of 2015, over 250 million Super Soakers had been sold.
- The invention of the Super Soaker hasn’t just benefited children, though — the royalties from its record sales have funded Johnson’s other research into clean energy and rechargeable battery technology.
- Johnson holds over 100 patents and has founded two companies — Excellatron Solid State and Johnson Battery Technologies — to commercialize his inventions.
- Johnson’s career exemplifies how strong patent rights fuel a virtuous cycle of innovation — with commercially successful inventions giving innovators the ability to pursue more speculative, but potentially world-changing, research.
(Photo credit: JTEC Energy)
What’s Happening in Congress
With the 119th Congress underway, Democratic and Republican lawmakers are weighing legislation to prioritize. For those following IP policy, top of mind is the recent 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 theft by larger competitors.
- The Realizing Engineering, Science, and Technology Opportunities by Restoring Exclusive (RESTORE) Patent Rights Act, which was recently 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.