Former USPTO Director Iancu Delivers Stinging Rebuke to ‘Delete IP Law’ Ideology

Photo credit: IPAS

Today, former U.S. Patent and Trademark Director Andrei Iancu delivered a keynote address to open the Intellectual Property Awareness Summit (IPAS) 2025 being held at Dolby Labs in San Francisco, CA. Iancu’s comments excoriated recent calls to weaken U.S. intellectual property laws for the purpose of devaluing American intellectual property (IP), a political viewpoint that he said cedes economic and technological dominance to foreign rivals like China.

‘Innovation Does Not Exist in a Vacuum’: Democratization of IP Drove Modern Tech

Iancu’s remarks began by observing last week’s 250th anniversary of the midnight ride of American revolutionary Paul Revere, a seminal moment in the American Revolution immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem. Iancu highlighted that, in Longfellow’s retelling, “[i]t was twelve by the village clock” when Revere reached Medford, MA; 1 AM after travelling the 15 miles to Lexington, MA; and 2 AM after riding an additional seven miles to Concord, MA. “When was the last time that you had to gallop for one hour to transmit messages between neighboring towns?” Iancu asked, underscoring the current state of instantaneous messaging over modern telecommunications networks, which most consumers take for granted today.

Although the state of communications technologies remained almost exactly the same across human history, from ancient Greece to pre-Industrial Revolution America, Iancu noted that a fundamental point lost to most observers of IP policy is that “we are so steeped in innovation that we have become blasé to the human endeavor.” He added:

“As a result, we believe that innovation just happens, but it doesn’t just happen, because if it did, it would have happened over hundreds of thousands of years of human existence on this planet. Innovation does not exist in a vacuum.”

No rational businessperson would ever support the idea or even say that we should “delete all IP law” unless their limited business interests would benefit economically from depressing the value of American innovation, Iancu said. While many supporting weaker IP laws in the U.S. do so out of misunderstanding the economic impact of IP, other such voices from large tech corporations and foreign countries advocate for weaker rights because they benefit from devaluing this important American asset.

Over the past few decades, wealthy entrenched interests favoring weaker IP rights have engaged in a strategy designed to make it impossible to enforce patent rights in the U.S., Iancu contended. Legislation and overregulation have resulted in multiple parallel proceedings that patent owners must undertake in U.S. district court, at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), and even in some instances the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC). Not only does this make enforcement more costly, but patents never achieve quiet title due to the potential for PTAB validity challenges throughout the patent’s time in force, Iancu said.

Overregulation, Removing Fundamental Right to Exclude are Major U.S. IP Issues

Beyond the expense of IP enforcement, Iancu noted that incredible pressure on the federal judiciary over time have led the courts to remove a patent owner’s right to exclude others from practicing the patented invention, the fundamental right that is the only right explicitly secured for “authors and inventors” in the IP Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Yet another problem is the complex state of current U.S. patent law. Iancu told IPAS attendees that, during his time as USPTO Director, he would tell agency employees that there is a hidden provision of patent law codified at 35 U.S.C. § 101.5 that reads, “the patent laws shall not be simple, and if they are, the courts will step in to make sure that they’re not simple.”

Finally, steps to overregulate developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and SEPs risk fragmenting the multilateral framework of IP treaties that would undermine the collaboration required for advancing technology and supporting high interoperability in global tech standards. While these issues have manifested across the global innovation ecosystem, Iancu said they are especially pronounced in the U.S., threatening the one area of the economy where the U.S. has a trade surplus with China.

Returning to Longfellow with hopefulness, Iancu noted that “Paul Revere’s Ride” concludes with the observation that “Through all our history, to the last,/ In the hour of darkness and peril and need,/ The people will waken and listen to hear…” While U.S. legislators and administrators need to better understand IP to have America’s best interests properly at heart, once elected officials listen and understand, Iancu said that they will do what’s right for America and ignore interests pushing for the weakening of this important American asset.