Posts in Capitol Hill

In the final session of IPWatchdog LIVE 2026 on Tuesday, March 24, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Deputy Director Coke Morgan Stewart had a conversation with IPWatchdog Founder and CEO Gene Quinn in which she confirmed the Office is paying attention to the recent surge in ex parte reexamination filings and also said she is “optimistic” that the pending Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) will be finalized. 

Spurred by reports that House leaders are trying to fast-track a bill to separate the U.S. Copyright Office from the Library of Congress, a coalition of consumer rights, industry, open internet and library groups has again sent a letter to the House Committee on Administration urging it to consider the bill on the regular timeline to avoid “unintended consequences.” A full committee markup of the bill is scheduled for tomorrow, March 18,

Yesterday, U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, and Peter Welch (D-VT) sent a letter addressed to Liang Rubo, CEO of Chinese technology company ByteDance, urging the immediate shutdown of ByteDance’s video generation platform Seedance 2.0. Calling ByteDance’s recent pledges to respect copyright “a delay tactic,” the Senators join a growing chorus of copyright advocates raising alarms about rampant infringement being committed by users of Seedance and other generative artificial intelligence (AI) platforms.

Every day, Americans rely on technologies that were unimaginable just a generation ago – from advanced medical devices and artificial intelligence–powered applications to connected consumer electronics. These breakthroughs did not emerge in a vacuum. They are the product of an innovation ecosystem shaped by policy choices. The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC)—an agency with the extraordinary power to block imports and, in turn, influence the direction of American technology policy—has drifted out of that balance. To align with the Trump Administration’s intellectual property priorities and pro-investment agenda, the ITC is in urgent need of reform.

Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Adam Schiff (D-CA), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, respectively, sent a letter on Thursday to Director of the American Law Institute Diane Wood asking for answers to 14 questions about the latest Copyright Restatement Project. The letter follows mass resignations from the project last year over concerns about the final product. Specifically, key copyright proponents resigned over what one of those who resigned, Copyright Alliance CEO Keith Kupferschmid, referred to as “a general undercurrent of anti-copyright sentiment that…manifests itself through a disproportionate focus on atypical court decisions that limit the scope of copyright protection.”

On Tuesday, news reports indicated that U.S. Senators Adam Schiff (D-CA) and John Curtis (R-UT) introduced the Copyright Labeling and Ethical AI Reporting (CLEAR) Act into Congress. If enacted as drafted, the bill would establish mandatory reporting requirements for companies developing artificial intelligence (AI) models that are trained using original works that are protected under U.S. copyright law, and would create an additional cause of action for copyright owners alleging that generative AI developers failed to give such notice with respect to their works.

During a Subcommittee hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee today, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick confirmed to Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) that he does not plan to implement his proposal to charge patent holders a percentage their patents’ value. The Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee held the hearing primarily to as Lutnick questions about issues surrounding broadband deployment funding. Coons, however, took the opportunity to ask Lutnick about a proposal first reported by the Wall Street Journal in July 2025 to charge a 1%-5% patent “tax” on the value of granted U.S. patents.

Panelists at IPWatchdog’s Virtual PTAB Masters Program 2026 last week had some cynical views on chances for pending patent reform bills, while on Friday other experts offered insights into developments at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) with respect to review of Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) cases. Speaking on Thursday’s panel, titled “Capitol Hill & PTAB Politics: Innovation Policy, Congressional Oversight and Mid-term Elections,” panelists first addressed the chances of bills such as the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) and the Promoting and Respecting Economically Vital American Innovation Leadership (PREVAIL) Act advancing this year.

On Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Trade convened a hearing titled Maintaining American Innovation and Technology Leadership, which explored a host of regulatory and other legal burdens being placed on tech industry trade by foreign governments to the detriment of American innovators and consumers. Among the panel witnesses at the subcommittee hearing was former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Andrei Iancu, who spoke to several ways that our nation’s adversaries and trading partners alike are weakening American IP rights and how those issues should be addressed by U.S. policymakers.

The House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday considered the Protecting Third Party Litigation Funding (TPLF) From Abuse Act as part of a lengthy markup hearing that chiefly focused on escalating immigration enforcement operations in the United States. The bill did not reach a vote after committee members recessed for votes on the House floor and never reconvened. Sources tell IPWatchdog the bill has now been pulled.  

As 2025 draws to a close, the intellectual property ecosystem faces a wave of transformative changes driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and evolving legislative priorities. From sweeping federal proposals aimed at harmonizing AI governance and overriding state laws, to new copyright and media integrity measures designed to address deepfakes and transparency, and finally to renewed momentum behind patent eligibility and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) reform, these developments signal a pivotal moment for innovators, rights holders, and policymakers alike. This article explores three critical fronts shaping the future of IP: federal AI legislation and executive preemption, copyright accountability and media integrity, and the year-end outlook for patent reform—each redefining the balance between innovation, protection, and compliance.

Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Peter Welch (D-VT) have introduced a bill to streamline the copyright registration process for visual artists, such as photographers, illustrators and graphic artists. According to a press release issued by Blackburn yesterday, “the [copyright] registration process is so bureaucratic and complicated that the time and expense of compliance is too high for high-volume creators like photographers, illustrators, and graphic artists.”

The “Legislative Branch Agencies Clarification Act” (H.R. 6028), which was introduced in November and would require the Librarian of Congress to be appointed by a bipartisan commission of congress, as well as remove the Librarian’s authority over the Copyright Office, is reportedly on a path to be fast-tracked. Re:Create, an organization with the stated mission of fighting for “a balanced copyright system that is pro-innovation, pro-creator, and pro-consumer,” along with seven other copyright and consumer advocacy groups, sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson and the House Administration Committee on December 11 urging Committee Members to slow their consideration of the bill, citing reports that “the House is considering swift passage…possibly on the suspension calendar or through other expedient means.”

The Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property held a hearing on Tuesday that included testimony from the band Kiss’s co-founder, Gene Simmons, to discuss issues surrounding a proposed bill to compensate performers when their songs are broadcast on terrestrial radio stations. “America remains the only democratic nation and one of the few countries globally that does not compensate performers or copyright holders when their songs are played on AM/FM radio,” said IP Subcommittee Chair Thom Tillis (R-NC).