Posts in Capitol Hill

Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) told US Inventors Conference attendees on Thursday that he will reintroduce the Restoring America’s Leadership in Innovation Act (RALIA). Massie first introduced RALIA in 2021. The bill would repeal the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), inter partes review (IPR) and post-grant review (PGR;) return the patent system to a “first-to-invent” model, rather than first-to-file, and would end automatic publication of patents. Inventor groups such as US Inventor and conservative groups have supported the legislation.

In the America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011, Congress required the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to establish at least three regional offices nationwide. These offices were not symbolic; they were intended to expand access to patent services, recruit new examiners, and strengthen innovation ecosystems outside Washington, D.C. In 2014, I was honored to serve as the first Director of the Rocky Mountain Regional Office, which provided inventors and small businesses across the Mountain West direct access to USPTO resources. By reducing barriers for entrepreneurs in states like Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming, the office became a vital link between the innovation community and the federal government. The Trump administration’s decision to close the Denver office undermines this congressional mandate.

An April 2025 report from the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK) titled, “The Heavy Price of GLP-1 Drugs,” presents grossly misleading information regarding the patent protection for semaglutide products (marketed by Novo Nordisk under the trademarks Ozempic, Rybelsus, and Wegovy) and tirzepatide products (marketed by Eli Lilly under the trademarks Mounjaro and Zepbound). The report accuses Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly of engaging in patent abuse to extend protection for their products. This accusation is predicated on I-MAK’s assertion that these companies own large numbers of patents covering their respective products. But, as the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) noted in its recent Drug Patent and Exclusivity Study, “simply quantifying raw numbers of patents and exclusivities is an imprecise way to measure the intellectual property landscape of a drug product because not every patent or exclusivity has the same scope.”

Since its introduction in 2023, the pro-patent community has broadly supported what the draft Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) said. However, a potentially monumental, unrelated rider seems to have crept in on the last page of the 2025 version…. Why did the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on IP feel the need to slip in a rider on the judicially created non-statutory doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting (judicially created ODP) in a bill directed to patent eligibility?

Eight witnesses across two panels testified today during a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property to discuss perspectives on the latest version of the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA), which its key sponsor, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) expressed urgency about passing before he retires from congress in 452 days.

As we reported he would be yesterday, John Squires today was officially confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be the next Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) as part of an en bloc vote on 48 pending Trump nominees. The confirmations were made by a vote of 51-47.

On Wednesday morning, the U.S. Senate held a series of votes that teed up the confirmation vote for John Squires to serve as Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), along with 47 other Trump Administration nominees, as part of Senate Republicans’ exercise of the “nuclear option” for confirmations recently approved by Senate rulemaking. Squires will take the helm of the USPTO following months of largely patent-friendly PTAB reforms established by Acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart, creating optimism that has recently been undercut by reported efforts to create fee frameworks based on patent valuation.

In the first session of IPWatchdog’s three-day 2025 Women’s IP Forum, which kicked off today, Acting Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Coke Morgan Stewart addressed recent criticisms of her approach to running the agency thus far, as well as the future direction of the Office. At the same time, the Senate Executive Calendar today indicated that Trump nominee for USPTO Director, John Squires, may be confirmed as early as this week, as part of a block of nominees to be considered following a Senate rule approved last week invoking the so-called “nuclear option.”

The Trump Administration is trying to counter China on nearly every strategic front, from the South China Sea to the factory floor. Yet the Administration, and Congress, haven’t yet done much to address one of America’s biggest vulnerabilities—the steady decline of our once world-class system of intellectual property (IP) rights.

On Tuesday, a coalition of business organizations and policy experts led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce raised several concerns related to potential new patent fees they said would amount to “fines” on patent owners in a letter addressed to the bipartisan leadership of the Judiciary Committees for both houses of Congress. Echoing warnings from industry insiders about the inherent difficulties of patent valuation, the U.S. Chamber’s letter questions the Trump Administration’s legal authority to implement such fees and says that the valuation-based fee framework would be “administratively unworkable.”

Thank you for inviting Senator Tillis’ office to participate in this listening session. Panelists were asked to address an issue impacting drug affordability and accessibility. I appreciate the opportunity to share some thoughts. America’s robust intellectual property framework, most notably our patent system, is essential to fostering investments in pharmaceutical innovation and to ensuring accessibility of those medicines to benefit patients and society, both in the short and long terms. Concerns regarding drug affordability are important – as are the efforts to strengthen the patent system to ensure continued innovation now and well into the future.

Today, Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC), Chris Coons (D-DE), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) introduced a bipartisan bill titled “Block Bad Electronic Art and Recording Distributors Act of 2025’’(the Block BEARD Act). The proposal is aimed at blocking foreign websites dedicated to piracy from making stolen content available to U.S. users.

Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) on Monday, July 21, introduced the AI Accountability and Personal Data Protection Act, which would chiefly bar artificial intelligence (AI) companies from using copyrighted works to train their generative AI tools without authors’ permission. The bill was announced less than a week after Hawley held a hearing of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism in which he called generative AI companies’ use of copyrighted works to train their chatbots and other large language models (LLMs) “the largest IP theft in American history.”

On Wednesday, July 16, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism held a hearing titled “Too Big to Prosecute?: Examining the AI Industry’s Mass Ingestion of Copyrighted Works for AI Training.” Subcommittee Chair Josh Hawley (R-MO) called generative AI companies’ use of copyrighted works to train their chatbots and other large language models (LLMs) “the largest IP theft in American history” and rejected the suggestion that the courts should determine the path forward.