Findings

Congress finds the following: (1) The patent property rights enshrined in the Constitution of the United States provide the foundation for the exceptional innovation environment in the United States. (2) Reliable and effective patent protection encourages United States inventors to invest their resources in creating new inventions. (3) United States inventors have made discoveries leading to patient cures, positive changes to the standard of living for all people in the United States, and improvements to the agricultural, telecommunications, and electronics industries, among others. (4) The United States patent system is an essential part of the economic success of the United States. (5) Reliable and effective patent protection improves the chances of success for individual inventors and small companies and increases the chances of securing investments for those inventors and companies. (6) Intellectual property-intensive industries in the United States— (A) generate tens of millions of jobs for individuals in the United States; and (B) account for more than 1/3 of the gross domestic product of the United States. (7) The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence has emphasized that— (A) the People’s Republic of China is leveraging and exploiting intellectual property as a critical tool within its national strategies for emerging technologies; and (B) the United States has failed to similarly recognize the importance of intellectual property in securing its own national security, economic interests, and technological competitiveness. (8) In the highly competitive global economy, the United States needs reliable and effective patent protections to safeguard national security interests and maintain its position as the most innovative country in the world. (9) Congress last enacted comprehensive reforms of the patent system in 2011. (10) Unintended consequences of the comprehensive 2011 reform of patent laws have become evident during the decade preceding the date of enactment of this Act, including the strategic filing of post-grant review proceedings to depress stock prices and extort settlements, the filing of repetitive petitions for inter partes and post-grant reviews that have the effect of harassing patent owners, and the unnecessary duplication of work by the district courts of the United States and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, all of which drive down investment in innovation and frustrate the purpose of those patent reform laws. (11) Efforts by Congress to reform the patent system without careful scrutiny create a serious risk of making it more costly and difficult for innovators to protect their patents from infringement, thereby— (A) disincentivizing United States companies from innovating; and (B) weakening the economy of the United States.