Patent eligibility restrictions threaten US technological leadership
Adam Mossoff, 24 - Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School George Mason University. Answers from Adam Mossoff to Questions for the Record from Senator Alex Padilla, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, United States Senate “The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act – Restoring Clarity, Certainty, and Predictability to the U.S. Patent System” 1/24, https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2024-01-23_-_qfr_responses_-_mossoff.pdf //DH
I am not an expert on international law or other countries’ patent law systems such that I can attest to the doctrinal details of how they adjudicate patent eligibility. With that said, other countries have not followed the U.S. in changing their patent-eligibility rules, and a published study of patent applications in the U.S., China, and Europe in the years after the Supreme Court created the Mayo-Alice inquiry in 2014 concluded that a significant number of inventions were secured by patents in China and Europe, but denied patent protection in the U.S.9 In 2019, I and my co-author published an updated review of the original dataset, finding 1,310 patent applications were abandoned following either initial or final rejections under the Alice-Mayo inquiry for lack of patent-eligible subject matter, and yet these same inventions had patent family members issued in China, Europe, or both.10 This data indicates that the U.S. risks losing its global technological leadership, as global competitors like China displace it in securing patents in biotech and high-tech inventions that will lead to new products and services with next-generation technologies.