Op-Eds

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 70% — had only a “passing interest” in policies that would strengthen IP rights. Kappos and Iancu argue that this apathy is letting IP rights wither away — with domestic jobs and U.S. tech leadership disappearing as a result. However, Kappos and Iancu also identify an easy fix. If lawmakers embrace IP issues and back bipartisan proposals like the PREVAIL Act and Patent Eligibility Restoration Act, it would incentivize innovation and investment into new technologies, helping America regain its status as the world’s leader in innovation. Kappos’ and Iancu’s call to action is clear: “For the sake of countless American companies and workers, it’s time for Congress to wake up, step up and champion robust IP rights.”

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. Judges Michel and O’Malley explain how the limits imposed on patentability in these cases have set a restrictive precedent that now makes it difficult for inventors to predict whether their high-tech creations will be protected by IP rights. There is a solution, however. The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act would set clear standards for patentability and extend patent protection to important fields like medical diagnostics, promoting investor confidence in cutting-edge research. As the judges explain: “[T]he inherent ambiguity of decisions like Alice and Mayo put lower courts into an impossible position — and the costs to innovation and the economy continue to mount. Congress can end the damage by passing PERA without delay.”

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 licensing fees for SEPs, would upend the efficient, established system under which companies themselves determine fair licenses. He argues that this top-down approach would favor large firms while disempowering smaller companies. Moreover, it would validate China’s efforts to unilaterally set SEP licensing rates, which threaten innovation across the entire world. With these potential consequences looming, Kappos urges European lawmakers to reject the proposal when they vote on it later this month. “Approving the proposal – which is designed to solve a problem that the European Commission’s own study admitted does not exist – would harm European companies without any offsetting benefits for consumers. Parliamentarians would be wise to reject it – before the damage is irreversible.”

Yesterday, the C4IP Board published an opinion piece in Euractiv highlighting how the European Commission’s recent proposal for standard-essential patents (SEPs) has empowered China to unilaterally set its own licensing terms, jeopardizing a longstanding model of international cooperation and threatening Europe’s own leadership in wireless technology. In the piece, the board explains how SEPs — which protect widespread technologies that must be standardized in order to function properly, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and 5G — have long been made available under “fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory” licenses negotiated between companies. Yet the European Commission’s new proposal would authorize European bureaucrats to decide the terms of licenses, overturning a system that is already cooperative and efficient. Taking cues from this, the board notes, China has recently asserted its own power to unilaterally set licensing rates — an egregious action that sets the stage for future Chinese dominance of wireless technologies. As the board argues, if European regulators proceed with this proposal, they are setting a highly dangerous precedent that could result in the continent losing its status as the leader in wireless technologies. “European innovators already face a dire threat from China. The last thing they need is for the European Parliament to undercut them too.”

Over the weekend, C4IP Co-Chairs and former USPTO Directors David Kappos and Andrei Iancu published an opinion piece in The Hill detailing how the Biden administration’s new proposal for march-in rights under the Bayh-Dole Act would decimate innovation across numerous crucial technology sectors. The administration’s unprecedented proposal, announced in December, would allow government bureaucrats to “march in” and take over the patents on federally funded inventions if they decide that certain arbitrary criteria are met. As Kappos and Iancu explain, this would not only defy the plain text of the law, but it would also impede the law’s goal by deterring investors from helping bring promising technologies to market. Moreover, while the White House has marketed the proposal as a blow to Big Pharma, Kappos and Iancu point out that it would have consequences for every technology area where federal funds are invested — including actively hindering progress on national priorities such as semiconductor innovation. “The administration’s proposal is legally unsupportable and ill-conceived. Adopting it would destroy investors’ incentives to license federally-funded research—and will thus stifle American innovation.”