Op-Eds

In their new opinion piece published in The Hill, C4IP Co-Chairs and former USPTO Directors Andrei Iancu and David Kappos call attention to a growing threat to American innovation: the erosion of patent enforcement, which in recent years has allowed intellectual property theft to go largely unpunished. Even after securing a patent and successfully proving infringement in court, innovators often find that the infringer can continue selling the stolen product with minimal consequences. Iancu and Kappos liken this phenomenon to someone being found guilty of trespassing but still being allowed to live in your home. This breakdown of basic property rights, they argue, defies common sense and jeopardizes America’s global technological leadership. To address the issue, they urge Congress to pass the bipartisan RESTORE Patent Rights Act, which would once again make injunctive relief the standard remedy in cases where valid patents are infringed. “By passing this much-needed reform, lawmakers can protect the rights of inventors — instead of rewarding thieves who steal innovators’ ideas in disregard of America’s technological leadership.”

As we celebrate Women’s History Month, it’s important to recognize the vital role women have played in shaping innovation — like Mary Anderson, who patented the windshield wiper in 1903, or Jennifer Doudna, inventor of the CRISPR gene-editing tool. Historically, strong intellectual property protections have empowered women to turn their groundbreaking ideas into transformative inventions. Unfortunately, small inventors today face growing challenges in protecting their IP from large, well-resourced corporations. In her recent essay, C4IP Chief Policy Officer Jamie Simpson outlines how large companies often appropriate smaller companies’ patented technologies rather than negotiating fair licenses. Then, when challenged, they use their resources to overwhelm smaller inventors through legal and financial pressure. This system is especially harmful to women and minority founders, who already face significant funding and opportunity barriers. Simpson highlights three bills in Congress — the PREVAIL Act, the RESTORE Act, and the IDEA Act — that would protect the rights of small inventors and those from historically underrepresented backgrounds to help build a thriving innovation ecosystem that works for everyone. “[The current] system doesn’t just harm current inventors, but creates powerful disincentives for future innovation. When would-be founders observe that their work can be stolen with little consequence, they may choose not to pursue their ideas at all,” said Simpson.

In a piece published by Law360, C4IP Co-Chair and former USPTO Director David Kappos debunks myths about the pharmaceutical industry’s alleged exploitation of the patent system, including claims of so-called “patent thickets” and “evergreening.” Citing a 2024 USPTO study, Kappos highlights the lack of evidence for these practices and warns that misguided legislative efforts to curb them could stifle medical innovation. Read the original piece here: https://www.law360.com/articles/2291368/congress-must-consider-accurate-data-about-patent-thickets Just before Christmas, Congress added — and then abruptly dropped — a section of a proposed spending bill aimed at limiting the number of patents pharmaceutical manufacturers could assert in patent litigation.[1][2] While well-intentioned, it would have severely limited innovators’ ability to protect their inventions from infringement. If lawmakers revisit this bill, Americans suffering from diseases will bear the weight of the consequences. The lawmakers behind the bill have good intentions. They’re trying to prevent exploitation of the patent system in ways that prevent cost-effective drugs from reaching the market. Anti-patent activists tell lawmakers that these practices are widespread. Those activists claim drug companies illegitimately obtain scores of overlapping patents — creating so-called thickets to block competition — or make insignificant tweaks to existing products to extend the life of the original patent, thereby extending market exclusivity and preventing generic competition, also known as evergreening. But those allegations are flatly contradicted by a 2024 U.S. Patent and Trademark Office study. The study, conducted in response to a request for an independent analysis of the issue from Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., found no evidence that patent thicketing or evergreening actually occurs.[3] By introducing new measures to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, lawmakers could inadvertently make it harder for life sciences companies to invest in legitimate research. Scientists, and ultimately patients, would be worse off as a result. The most influential source of these patent thicket theories is the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge, or I-MAK. The group has long produced reports that purport to show the scale of the problem, but lawmakers shouldn’t take the group’s claims at face value. As law scholar Adam Mossoff notes in a recent Hudson Institute report summarizing the USPTO study, I-MAK’s publications are factually unreliable.[4] Consider the patent thicketing allegations. I-MAK asserted that 68 patents were associated with the popular nerve-pain relief drug Lyrica.[5] But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration‘s Orange Book — which lists all patents covering approved drugs in the U.S. — lists ...

In their new paper published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, C4IP Co-Chairs and former USPTO Directors Andrei Iancu and David Kappos emphasize that strong intellectual property (IP) protections are essential for fostering innovation in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). They argue that AI’s advancement depends on human ingenuity and that, without robust patent protections for AI-driven innovations, we risk stifling the very creativity necessary to propel this transformative technology forward. Additionally, they highlight how clear and enforceable guidelines and IP protections can benefit content creators by reducing the harms of AI on the artistic community — without hindering AI’s continued progress. One example is the No Fakes Act, a piece of legislation that aims to prevent deepfakes. Iancu and Kappos also express concern about the USPTO’s overly restrictive guidance on AI-related inventions, particularly its stance that AI-generated outputs are comparable to human abstract thought processes, which are typically not patent-eligible. “Our laws should treat AI like any other tool: defaulting to patent eligibility until and unless compelling evidence becomes available to dictate some other policy direction,” explain Iancu and Kappos. “Of course, strengthening IP protections for both data inputs and human-created enhancements won’t just increase the social and economic utility of AI. A more robust and reliable system of IP rights will also directly benefit content creators.”

In their new opinion piece published in The Well News, C4IP Co-Chairs and former USPTO Directors Andrei Iancu and David Kappos debunk the notion of a patent quality crisis in the United States, citing a recent study that underscores the strength of our patent system. According to Iancu and Kappos, the study found that the USPTO’s “world-class” performance is on par with its international counterparts in the European Union, South Korea, and Japan. They explain that, if anything, the USPTO would benefit from stronger patent protections so that fewer high-quality patents are thrown out. Per the study, the USPTO is more than twice as likely to reject a valid patent claim than it is to approve an invalid one — resulting in thousands of high-quality inventions being denied patents every year. “The United States stacks up well against our peers when it comes to keeping out ‘bad patents.’ But to succeed in the battle for 21st century technological supremacy, we’ll also need to ensure that we do not keep out good patents. The incoming administration and USPTO leadership can achieve this by strengthening patent protections and rejecting false narratives about the prevalence of low-quality patents.”

C4IP Board Member and former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals Paul Michel recently penned an op-ed in the DC Journal shining a spotlight on how Big Tech companies undermine smaller businesses by exploiting the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). These companies overwhelm their smaller rivals with costly patent invalidation challenges at the PTAB, exploiting their vast financial resources to suppress competition. Judge Michel provides valuable insight into the PTAB’s original purpose: improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the patent system to support American inventors and entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, as Judge Michel points out, the board’s reality has strayed far from its founding principles. In order to restore balance and protect the rights of small inventors, Judge Michel argues that Congress must reform the PTAB by passing the Promoting and Respecting Economically Vital American Innovation Leadership (PREVAIL) Act. “Small businesses help make America’s economy tick. They are responsible for most technological breakthroughs that allow us to protect our national security and compete with global rivals,” says Michel. “Passing the PREVAIL Act would help inventors and small businesses defend their rights — and show that, even after a divisive election, Democrats and Republicans can come together to make the system work better for ordinary Americans.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to China, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and Governor of Washington Gary Locke recently authored an opinion piece in the Minnesota Star Tribune highlighting the importance of two bipartisan bills to Minnesota’s innovation ecosystem. According to Locke, the Promoting and Respecting Economically Vital American Innovation Leadership (PREVAIL) Act and the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) would address imbalances and inefficiencies in the patent system as well as provide much-needed clarity on which inventions qualify for patent protection. Locke details how recent developments have created significant barriers for American innovators: Large companies have weaponized the Patent Trial and Appeal Board by filing duplicative legislation against their smaller competitors, and in addition, a series of Supreme Court cases has decreased the number of cutting-edge technologies eligible for patentability. He calls on Minnesota leaders to support the PREVAIL Act and PERA to address these issues, stressing the importance of these bills to their state’s innovation economy: “Minnesota’s congressional delegation can help safeguard both Minnesota’s economy and America’s technological competitiveness by lending their support to these bipartisan bills.”

C4IP Co-Chair and former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu recently published an opinion piece in The Hill that discusses the current confusion around patent eligibility and explains how the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) will “set matters right.” Should modern inventions like genetic blood tests to detect disease biomarkers or artificial intelligence be patent-eligible? According to Iancu, the Supreme Court has attempted to provide some clarity on this issue in four recent cases over the last 15 years — but these rulings have only served to confuse matters more. During Iancu’s tenure as Director at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the office issued guidelines that clarified many of these patent eligibility issues. But this guidance can only go so far. Iancu asserts that the continued uncertainty stemming from the Supreme Court rulings underscores the need for legislative action. “It will take a change in the law to set matters right,” Iancu argues. “That’s the gap the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) fills.”