No Link – Bipartisan House members and committees push the plan

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky has reintroduced a bill that would abolish the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, return the U.S. to a first-to-invent system and overturn the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Alice and Mayo decisions on patent eligibility.

Introduced on Thursday in the House Judiciary Committee, the Restoring America's Leadership in Innovation Act would also undo the Supreme Court's eBay decision, which U.S. Circuit Judge Kathleen M. O'Malley said recently makes it nearly impossible for patent owners to get injunctions in U.S. courts.

Massie announced H.R. 5874 in a press release on Friday, saying it would restore patent rights as originally envisioned by the U.S. Constitution by reversing changes the America Invents Act ushered in during the last major overhaul of the U.S. system.

"Regrettably, Congress's 2011 enactment of the Leahy-Smith 'America Invents Act' has worked in concert with several Supreme Court decisions to erode this protection's strength and value," Massie said in a statement on Friday.

Massie — an inventor himself who holds two dozen patents — first proposed the bill in 2018. The bill was reintroduced in 2020 and is cosponsored by Reps. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., and Tom McClintock, R-Calif.

The bill is the latest legislative proposal aimed at making changes to the patent system, and follows Sen. Patrick Leahy's effort to revamp the AIA. The Democratic senator from Vermont introduced the Restoring the America Invents Act in September, which would do away with the PTAB's controversial policy of denying AIA petitions for reasons other than the merits of the case, among other things.

Massie's bill, which would do away with the PTAB altogether, is supported by several patent owner groups, including US Inventor. A regular and vocal critic of the PTAB, the group said in a statement on Monday touting Massie's bill that the "once-great patent system has been dying under the AIA and the PTAB."

"For the good of our country, especially economically through regaining our innovative preeminence, the Restoring America's Leadership in Innovation Act must be passed," the group said.

Massie's bill takes aim at the PTAB itself and would wipe out the AIA's inter partes and post-grant reviews. It would also repeal part of the AIA that switched the U.S. from a first-to-invent system to one where patents are awarded to the first inventor to file a patent application.

In his statement on Friday, Massie said the latter provision would ensure that inventors and their investors can have confidence that their innovations will be protected.

"Patents should protect those who innovate, not those who win the race to the patent office," Massie said.

Section 101 of the Patent Act would also be amended under the proposed legislation, overturning Supreme Court decisions on patent subject-matter eligibility, such as Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International and Mayo v. Prometheus . The text of the bill says that is "to ensure that life sciences discoveries, computer software, and similar inventions and discoveries are patentable, and that those patents are enforceable."

And the bill also seeks to undo the Supreme Court's 2006 eBay decision, which held that district courts shouldn't automatically issue injunctions in patent infringement cases. The bill says the eBay decision "has been applied as a de facto presumption against granting patent owners injunctive relief.

In cases where infringement is found, Massie's bill would require district courts to presume that any further infringement would irreparably harm the patent owner.

--Additional reporting by Dani Kass. Editing by Nicole Bleier.