Broad concerns exist over new legal battles and affordability issues related to new patent eligibility

A proliferation of patents in the life sciences and biotechnology fields could lead to more patent infringement lawsuits and over the boundaries of intellectual property rights. This situation was directly addressed by the Supreme Court in the wake of the litigation explosion in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Should the PERA’s new patent eligibility standards restore those circumstances, increased litigation costs may be passed on to consumers in the form of higher drug prices and reduced choices, further exacerbating affordability issues. Any proposed expansion of patent eligibility for inventions involving natural products or biological molecules and processes could have significant implications for drug prices and affordability. By allowing broader patenting of naturally occurring compounds, genes, proteins, and biological processes, pharmaceutical companies would gain stronger exclusive rights over these fundamental building blocks of drug development. This may be particularly problematic in rapidly evolving fields like AI, precision medicine, and genetic testing, where the closer a patent is to an abstract idea or natural phenomenon, the more stifling its impact will be on the development of new inventions and applications.

Patent reforms related to AI and emerging technology have been controversial

USPTO, Report to Congress Patent eligible subject matter: Public views on the current jurisprudence in the United States June 2022 https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/USPTO-SubjectMatterEligibility-PublicViews.pdf

Though all commenters recognized the importance of fostering AI and quantum computing technologies, not all commenters held the view that stronger or more robust patent rights for these areas would achieve such results.354 Specifically, some commenters advocated that AI innovations should be excluded from eligibility.355 A few commenters pointed out that because patent law remained unchanged for many historical technologies that are considered disruptive, the same reasoning should apply to AI and emerging technologies.356 Finally, a high-tech advocacy group cautioned that the USPTO must continue to evaluate these new and fast-evolving technologies consistent with the current law and ensure proper application of all relevant patentability statutes.357