Posts Tagged: "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,

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.”

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.”

On day one of IPWatchdog’s Life Sciences Masters 2025, panelists addressed a number of looming policy proposals that are negatively impacting the life sciences industry and urged stakeholders to get involved and speak out in order to minimize their effects. An introductory panel that included program sponsors Sherry Knowles of Knowles Intellectual Property Strategies and Robert Sahr of Wolf Greenfield, as well as Becky Kaufman of Ohio State University’s Office of Legal Affairs, discussed topics including Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick’s patent tax proposal and the administration’s threats to march in on federally-funded university patents.

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.

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.