A group of senior US House lawmakers has introduced the Prohibiting Adversarial Patents Act, a bill that would bar Chinese entities flagged as national security threats from obtaining US patents. The legislation, introduced on 9 June, targets companies listed on the Non-SDN CMIC List, the 1260H List, and the Federal Communications Commission's Covered List — three of Washington's primary national-security designation frameworks.

Key Provisions of the Bill

The bill was introduced by House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar, Congressman Scott Fitzgerald, and Congressman Darrell Issa. Under the proposed law, any person or entity appearing on the designated national-security threat lists would be prohibited from receiving a US patent grant. Supporters argue that adversarial entities have long exploited America's open intellectual property system to accumulate patents and then deploy them in litigation against domestic firms.

'The Chinese Communist Party seeks out US patents not because it believes in the right to own one's intellectual property, but because stealing American innovation is part of its economic plan,' Moolenaar said. He further argued that the legislation would curb what he described as 'lawfare' — flooding US courts with patent lawsuits to drain American companies of resources.

What the Lawmakers Said

Fitzgerald described the bill as closing 'the door on hostile foreign entities using our patent system to gain economic leverage and undermine our national security.' Issa called the Chinese Communist Party 'the foremost challenge to US economic and technological interests,' adding that entities tied to it had 'been allowed to benefit from the protections of America's patent system while actively undermining our interests.'

The three lawmakers collectively framed the bill as a corrective to decades of what they characterised as systemic exploitation of US legal and intellectual property frameworks by state-linked Chinese entities.

Industry Support and Context

The High Tech Inventors Alliance voiced support for the measure, stating that 'entities identified as national security threats' had been allowed to 'amass and weaponise US patents against critical domestic industries such as semiconductor manufacturing, digital infrastructure, and artificial intelligence.'

The bill arrives against a backdrop of sharply escalating US-China technology competition. According to data cited from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), China filed more than 1.8 million patent applications globally in 2024 — the highest of any country. In the United States specifically, foreign residents accounted for nearly 55% of all patent applications in 2024, with China alone submitting a record 49,000 applications.

Broader Implications

Critics of the current system note that even companies on US national-security watch lists can currently benefit from patent licensing revenue and enforce patents against American firms in US courts — a legal anomaly the bill seeks to eliminate. This comes amid growing bipartisan consensus in Washington that China's role in global technology competition requires legislative, not just regulatory, responses.

The bill's passage through Congress remains to be seen, but its introduction signals that intellectual property law is becoming the next frontier in the broader US-China technology rivalry.